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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THEISM 

IN THE LIGHT OF PRESENT SCIENCE 
AND PHILOSOPHY 



♦Tl^)C^O 



THEISM 

IN THE LIGHT OF PRESENT SCIENCE 
AND PHILOSOPHY 



JAMES IVERACH, M.A., D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "IS GOD KNOWABLE ? " "EVOLUTION AND 
CHRISTIANITY," ETC. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON • MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1899 

C 
All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1899, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



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NorSiiocti iPtess 

J. S. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



THE CHARLES F. DEEMS LECTURESHIP 
OF PHILOSOPHY 

The University accepted, April 15, 1895, from the 
American Institute of Christian Philosophy an en- 
dowment of Fifteen Thousand Dollars for the sup- 
port of a lectureship to be called the Charles F. 
Deems Lectureship of Philosophy, under the follow- 
ing rules : — 

The University agrees to maintain said lectureship 
by securing for each year, or each alternate year, a 
Lecturer, eminent in Science and Philosophy, who 
shall treat in not less than six lectures some one of 
the most important questions of Science and Philoso- 
phy, with a special reference to its relation to the 
revealed truths of the Holy Scriptures and to the 
fundamental principles of Theistic Philosophy. 

The Lecturer shall be chosen by the University's 
Committee upon the Charles F. Deems Lectureship, 
which shall consist of the Chancellor and two mem- 
bers of the Faculty of Arts and Science and two 
members of the University Council, to be named as 
the Council may direct. The subject for each year's 
lectures shall be agreed upon between this Committee 
and the Lecturer. 



Vlll THE DEEMS LECTURESHIP 

The University shall provide, free of charge, a 
room for the lectures, and shall, at its own expense, 
make due public announcement of the time and 
place of each lecture. The University shall also 
publish, in book form, each series of lectures, and 
put the same on sale with one or more reputable 
book firms, provided this can be done without fur- 
ther expense than can be met by the accumulation 
of income over and above the expense of maintaining 
the annual or biennial series of lectures. 

The University's Committee at present is consti- 
tuted as follows: Chancellor MacCracken, Dean 
Baird, Dean Prince, Mr. WilUam S. Opdyke, and 
Rev. Dr. George Alexander. 

The inaugural course upon this foundation was given 
in April, 1899, by Professor James Iverach, D.D., of 
the Free Church College, Aberdeen, Scotland. 

These lectures are now published by the Uni- 
versity. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The scientific view of the world, and its bearing on Theism i 

CHAPTER n 

The inorganic world a preparation for life : the physical 

characteristics of life ...... 34 

CHAPTER HI 
Life : its genesis, growth, and meaning .... 66 

CHAPTER IV 
Rational life and its implications ..... 98 

CHAPTER V 
The Making of man 131 

CHAPTER VI 

Is a rational religion possible? Mr. Benjamin Kidd and 

Mr. Arthur Balfour 163 

CHAPTER VII 
Personality ; its character and its meaning , . . 195 

CHAPTER VIII 
Religion : its nature, history, and demands . . . 227 

ix 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IX 



Philosophy in its agnostic aspect : its postulates, its char- 
acter, and its truth 260 



CHAPTER X 

Idealistic philosophy : its merits and its defects ; the con- 
ception of God ; how shall we conceive the synthetic 
unity of God, man, and the world? — the kingdom of 
God 293 



THEISM 

IN THE LIGHT OF PRESENT SCIENCE 
AND PHILOSOPHY 



THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD, 
AND ITS BEARING ON THEISM 

My first duty in connection with this lectureship 
is to express my warmest thanks to the authorities 
of the New York University for the high honour they 
have conferred upon me in choosing me to be the 
first Deems lecturer. It is the greatest honour of 
my life, and it bears with it a corresponding respon- 
sibility. It came on me with surprise, and I accepted 
it with fear and anxiety ; for I had some idea of the 
work done in America in theology and philosophy. 
I do not mention the achievements of America in 
other fields ; I speak only of those with which I am 
familiar. It was surprising to me that I should be 
asked to speak to this University, and to this public, 
on topics with regard to which they had so many 
workers of renown on this side of the water. I had 
read many of the works of American writers on 
theology and philosophy; I had learned much from 
them ; I had striven to follow the evolution of Amer- 
ican thought and life, from the epoch-making work 
of Jonathan Edwards onward to the present time; 
and I had come to have a high appreciation of the 



2 THEISM 

value of that work. So numerous are the works of 
American writers on the subjects connected with the 
topic I have to discuss that I shall not mention any 
names. It you find in my lectures traces of the 
influence which your own writers have exerted on 
my mind, I hope you will not find fault with me on 
that account ; I hope you will take it as a tribute to 
the value of American work. 

The subject of my lecture is Theism, in the light 
of present science and philosophy. I shall endeavour 
to look at the world with the eyes of science, as 
science sets forth for us the story of the world in the 
ages of the past, and unfolds for us the magnificence 
of the world as it now is. I desire to learn from the 
masters of science what kind of world I live in, what 
has been its past history, and what is its probable 
outlook. Having learned from science all that I can 
grasp, I may have to ask questions which science can- 
not answer, ultimate questions which science leaves to 
philosophy and theology, and we shall ask what is the 
present attitude of philosophy toward these questions 
which science has left unsettled. It looks Uke a large 
order, and, on the face of it, it seems rather presumptu- 
ous for any man to profess to deal with so large a 
theme. It would be presumptuous were I to profess 
to teach all that science has to say on every topic, or 
even profess to have mastered all the sciences. I am 
not so presumptuous as to profess anything of the 
kind. A man may understand something of physics. 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 3 

although he has not read the "Principia" of Newton, 
and he may have a general knowledge of mathematics, 
though he is unfit to read all the works of Cayley or 
Sylvester. The scope and range of geological work 
he may understand, though he may not be famiUar 
with all the details of the successive epochs of geo- 
logical evolution. At all events, a man may study 
science for the purpose of seeing for himself that 
system of the universe which science may disclose 
to his mind, and may inquire what elements require 
to be added to the scientific view in order to obtain 
a rational view of the world as a whole. The pre- 
supposition of science is that the world has a mean- 
ing, is intelligible, and that the world is a whole, and 
forms a system. We presume that we are in a 
rational world, that things have a meaning, that they 
work together, and that the method of their working 
may be found and expressed. Acting on this presup- 
position men have gone to work, and in the several 
departments of science have formulated a number of 
rules or laws which have been verified as true, and 
when acted on have turned out to be adequate and 
accurate. Science, so far as it goes, is the record of 
man's understanding of the world in which he lives, 
and his mastery over it. I say so far as it goes ; for 
great as have been its achievements, and vast as 
have been its conquests, it only stands on the thresh- 
old of the world it has to conquer. The world is one, 
and the sciences are many. The world moves to- 



4 THEISM 

gether, and the sweep of its movement is always real, 
concrete, and complete. Our abstract sciences toil 
after it in vain. We break up the world into aspects, 
and we suffer for it; as each aspect tends to substi- 
tute itself in the place of the whole reality. The 
world thinks things together, we think them apart; 
and we are apt to put the aspect we see in the place 
of the whole. 

It is our lot, as finite beings, to be able to attend to 
few things at a time. We have our ways of neglect- 
ing many aspects of reality, in order to attend only 
to that which attracts us, and to the understanding of 
which we bend all our strength. We have fallen 
on many methods by the use of which we seek to 
simplify the multiplicity of the problems set to us in 
life, and to make them such as we may grasp. We 
are baffled by the complex problems set to us by the 
simplest particle of matter. Even if we can picture 
to ourselves a particle of matter, it is impossible for 
us to grasp in one thought all that is involved in the 
notion. For there is in it, first, the notion of matter, 
which, simple as it appears to unreflective common 
sense, is yet one of the most complex notions which 
a long process of abstraction has bequeathed to us. 
Then it is by no means easy to grasp the notion of 
a particle, and the larger our knowledge is the more 
difficult is it to give a satisfactory account of a 
material particle. Suppose that we have come to 
some satisfactory definition of a particle of matter, 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 5 

such as we may find in our text-books of physics or 
chemistry, it is still too large for us to deal with it as 
a whole. In our statics we proceed to deal with it as 
it is at rest in its present position, whatever it may 
be, but in order to do so we must neglect all that is 
characteristic of it save only the one feature of it 
to which we attend. Then conceive it in motion, and 
we may deal with it under the title of the dynamics 
of a particle. Only those who have studied the 
mathematical complexities contained in a text-book 
with such a title can have any adequate conception of 
the intricate analysis and mathematical difficulty in- 
volved in a satisfactory treatment of the subject. In 
order to deal with it at all we have neglected all 
those aspects of the particle which do not lend them- 
selves to our treatment. We simply treat it as a 
something which occupies space, and can be moved 
under certain forces from place to place. We do 
not think of it as having bulk, weight, resistance; nor 
do we think of it as being matter in a certain state. 
Temperature, chemical properties, electric condition, 
and a thousand other properties are non-existent for 
us, or, at all events, are neglected by us. In reality 
every particle of matter has physical, chemical, and 
other properties, and has them all at the same time. 
Every particle of matter has a certain weight, a cer- 
tain chemical property, is at a certain temperature, 
and is in a certain electric state, but to grasp these 
all at once lies beyond our power. We need some- 



6 THEISM 

times to remind ourselves of these most obvious 
truths. Amid the many and varied sciences that 
claim our attention, physics, — chemistry, biology, 
psychology, and so on, we are apt to think that the 
world of nature and of men is split up into so many 
compartments, which have little or no«^ connection 
with one another. The separate sciences are apt to 
make us lose sight of the fact that we are deaUng 
with one world. To limit our view at present to 
the inorganic world, let us think for a moment of 
the way in which we break up the unity of the 
world into aspects and fragments. I come to one 
of your great universities to study physics, and 
I put myself under the guidance of one of your 
great teachers. I am told that a certain amount 
of mathematical training is needed for the proper 
study of physics. I am told that all that has mag- 
nitude admits of measurement, and all that can be 
measured is subject to mathematics. I am taught 
mathematics, rising in time to its higher branches. 
The result is that I am led to look at the world as 
a great mechanism, working and being wrought in a 
way that can be calculated. It is a magnitude exist- 
ing in space and time, and it works in a measurable 
fashion. That is the kind of notion given me by my 
study of mathematics. 

Prepared thus, I go to a master in physics, and I 
find myself still in a world of mechanism, only now it 
is a world of a more intricate sort. There are bodies 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD y 

in it which I am told are real bodies. There are laws 
at work which I am told are real laws, and these I 
have to investigate and learn. I am taught that there 
are laws of motion, and I learn them as set forth by- 
Newton, with whatever modifications of them have 
been made since his time. Properties of matter are 
set forth to me, and I am told of the various states 
which matter may assume ; and I am told that what- 
ever may be its state, it attracts all other matter in 
the universe inversely as the square of the distance. 
I learn something of the kinetic theory of gases, of 
the laws which govern matter in the gaseous, the 
liquid, and the solid state. But these states depend 
largely on temperature, and I must learn of heat and 
its laws, so the whole subject of thermo-dynamics 
opens up before me. This in turn is connected with 
electricity, and the subject of electricity next en- 
gages my attention. Suppose a man to be thus led 
around the whole round of physics as it is presented 
to him in any of our well-equipped universities, and 
to have acquired a well-grounded knowledge of the 
field of physics, what is his impression of it } It 
seems to me that the first thing he ought to do would 
be to touch mother earth once more. The unity of 
the physical world has been attenuated in his mind 
into a number of separate aspects. He has concep- 
tions of a number of separate sciences, and of a world 
which so far corresponds to each abstract science, 
but not of a world which corresponds to the unity 



8 THEISM 

which underlies them all. Light, heat, electricity, 
gravitation, properties of matter, all the separate 
sciences which make up the whole conception of 
physics, lie as separate sciences in the mind, and 
the need of a concrete universal is great. Even 
the great doctrine of the conservation of energy is 
insufficient to bring our physicist back to concrete 
reality, for it, too, is an abstraction. 

We are so proud, too, of our abstractions, and of 
those general laws which we have been able to 
express. We grow eloquent about the law of grav- 
itation, of the conservation of energy, and other 
great generalizations which mark the greatness of 
the human mind. Men talk grandly of the persist- 
ence of force, and think they can explain the universe 
in terms of matter and motion, and their distribution 
and redistribution. I do not find fault; but I seek 
to remember that the explanations which I read are 
not in terms of the reality of the world, but in terms 
of the abstractions which have been made by finite 
intelligence, and that they may have only a finite 
reference. The process of abstraction and general- 
ization, by means of which we seek to pass from the 
particular to the universal, lead us farther and farther 
from reality. Certain aspects are isolated. We take 
those qualities in which particular things resemble 
each other, and we neglect the differences, and we 
invent general names for those qualities they have 
in common. When the process is so far complete, 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 9 

we are apt to substitute the qualities we have 
abstracted for the complex reality of which they are 
only aspects. It helps us to call green, violet, red, 
by the general name of colour, it helps our thinking 
to have a general name for plants, animals, men, and 
so on, if we remember that the unity thus manufac- 
tured is only formal, made by us for our convenience, 
and does not represent a real unity. It is no real 
bond of union that we reach by a process of general- 
ization. In fact, the more we generalize, the farther 
do we remove ourselves from reality; and the objec- 
tive truth of things cannot be reached by that process. 
Our books on logical and scientific method teach 
with sufficient fulness and clearness the process by 
which we rise to the recognition of wider and wider 
laws. Here they leave nothing to be desired. Our 
university lectures also teach the theory of the 
process of generalization adequately and fully. I 
do not find in our books descriptive of scientific and 
logical method what I find in the practical teaching 
of science. There I am taught not only to rise to 
higher and higher generalizations, I am taught to 
recognize that synthesis of particulars which con- 
stitute the thinghood of the thing. This reverse 
process is in fact always going on. The process of 
science depends not only on the recognition of wider 
generalizations, but also on the discovery of those 
unities which have features peculiar to themselves. 
It was a great discovery to find out the mechanical 



lO THEISM 

equivalent of heat, and to be able to say that heat is 
a mode of motion ; it was also a discovery quite as 
great to find out Argon, with its unique characteristics. 
General laws are, after all, not the greatest part of 
human knowledge, nor the most important. While 
we speak about them and use them, we always do so 
with a kind of unconscious caution, and with the 
reserve that they must conform to the objective 
reality. Our practical teachers, who have always 
before them the tremendous criticism which nature 
passes on our abstractions, insist that their students 
shall have, not only a knowledge of abstract mathe- 
matics and physics, but they also insist that students 
shall make themselves acquainted with the qualities 
and characteristics of those materials with which they 
will have to deal in the active business of their profes- 
sion. Thus the concrete particularity of each kind of 
thing is of the utmost importance ; and the method of 
ascertaining these is not recognized in our text-books. 
Still, it may be admitted that the attainment of 
universality is eminently desirable. To be able to 
make universal judgments is indeed indispensable. 
How shall they be made } Generalization, or the 
method which arrives at a kind of universality by 
leaving out differences, does not seem a hopeful 
method. True, we may thus arrive at a certain kind 
of universality, but when we have done so, it is a 
kind which has no objective reference, and is not 
true save of our subjective notions. That there are 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD II 

a unity and universality in things is a conviction as 
deep as any to be found in the human mind ; but how 
shall we attain to that unity ? May we hope to find 
a universality which will not express merely the 
invention of the observing and classifying mind, but 
a unity and universality immanent in the things 
themselves, and expressive of their very nature? 
May we hope to find a method which shall take up 
particular things in all their particularity, and yet see 
them, not in isolation, but in their relation to the 
system of which they form a part? It were a con- 
summation devoutly to be wished. Certainly there 
is such a system, and the intelligible universe is such 
a system. There, in concrete reality, are the things, 
beings, persons, actually subsisting in one space and 
in one time, each in its concrete reality, with all its 
peculiarities and characteristics ; and without suppres- 
sion of difference they take their place and perform 
their functions in the ongoing of the universe. We 
shall never reach any nearer to an apprehension of 
the real universe by running upward to the highest 
abstraction we can express, — call it substance, being, 
or force, or by any other name, — and then reverse the 
process and descend downward, adding difference 
to difference as we need them, till we arrive at the 
concrete world. We are in an unreal world all the 
time, and our abstractions simply delude us. Worlds 
are not made in that way, nor can they by that way 
be understood. 



12 THEISM 

In our descriptions and definitions we take what 
we conceive to be essential, positive, and sufficient, 
and we are ready to forget those quaUties which we 
have left out of account. By simply taking those 
properties which we have abstracted from the con- 
crete reality, we have not caused the other relations 
to disappear. They remain as a disturbing element, 
to remind us again of their neglected existence. 
Those which we have regarded as essential proper- 
ties, fixed in a definition, and marked by a common 
name, are real ; but the neglected are also real. 
Matter may be described as a set of individual units, 
or as a set of things bound together in chemical 
relations, but neither conception expresses all that we 
mean by matter. Each expresses one aspect of real 
existence, and we may use it without error, so long 
as we remember that it represents only an aspect, 
and that aspect the one we are most interested in for 
the time. 

We do injustice to the actual procedure of scientific 
men when we formulate it as we have done in our 
text-books of logic. Conceptions, general names, 
notions, are set forth as if they are the results of a 
process of abstraction, in which specific differences 
are neglected and left out of account. The real 
process of science, as exemplified by the practice of 
scientific men, is something very different. It is the 
attempt to recognize in things the concrete relations 
to each other which they involve. I do not think I 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 1 3 

can describe it better than by a description of the 
process of an actual discovery. Professor Ramsay, 
in the conclusion of an article on ''The Kinetic 
Theory of Gases," in the Contemporary Review, says: 
" We have seen that the discovery by Lord Rayleigh 
of a discrepancy in the density of atmospheric nitro- 
gen has resulted in the discovery of a new constituent 
of air, argon; its discovery has led to that of a 
constituent of the solar atmosphere, helium ; specu- 
lations on the ultimate nature and motion of the 
particles of which it is believed that gases consist 
has provoked the consideration of the conditions 
necessary in order that planets and satellites may 
retain an atmosphere, and of the nature of that 
atmosphere; the necessary existence of an undis- 
covered element was foreseen, owing to the usual 
regularity in the distribution of the atomic weights 
of elements not being attained in the case of helium 
and argon, and the source of neon was therefore 
indicated. This source, atmospheric air, was investi- 
gated, and the missing element was discovered. A 
new fact has been added to science, and one not 
disconnected from others, but one resulting from the 
convergence of many speculations, observations, and 
theories, brought to bear on one another." {Con- 
temporary Review, November, 1898, p. 691.) 

Here we have a telling illustration of the difference 
between the universal as a law of nature and the 
universal which is merely an abstract conception. 



14 THEISM 

In the wonderful story of scientific success recorded 
by Professor Ramsay, we never touch the region of 
mere abstract conceptions. There is first the recog- 
nition of the difference of density between nitrogen 
from one source and another, and there is the in- 
telligent search for the cause of this difference. The 
result is the discovery of an element having prop- 
erties distinct from all other elements. Here is the 
search for a concrete thing successfully conducted, 
and there is no parade of abstract formulae employed 
in the search. At the basis there is a magnificent 
conception ; but it is one not reached by a process of 
mere generalization arrived at by leaving out specific 
differences. It is reached by recognizing the specific 
differences of all the elements known, their mutual 
relations, and the laws of their distribution, and thus 
a new element is added to the family of chemical 
elements. It is to be observed, also, that a regard to 
the law of periodicity of the weights of the elements 
led on to the further discovery of neon. The beauty 
of the real process of discovery, whether it be the 
discovery of a new element, or of a wide law like 
that known as the ** periodic arrangement of ele- 
ments," is that it is no abstract conception that is 
reached, but a conception which strives to set forth 
clearly, fully, adequately, the concrete relations of 
the objects in view. A conception which correctly 
formulates the actual relations of things has thus 
real objective value. Taken by itself it is a mere 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 15 

abstraction, and is only a symbol, which may mislead 
the mind by a false appearance of reality. 

The difference here emphasized between a scien- 
tific conception and a mere abstract conception is 
dwelt upon because it will greatly help us in the 
course of our discussion. To take an illustration 
which may anticipate what will be more fully dis- 
cussed later on, but is used here to show why we 
have insisted on the distinction. Spinoza says, 
" Omnis determinatio est negatio " ; and this has been 
made the basis of much argumentation of the nega- 
tive sort. It has been applied to the theistic argu- 
ment ; it has been used to show that the absolute and 
infinite are only negative notions. If we are perched 
on the ladder of generalization as it is described 
in a book of pure logic, it is true that every definition 
limits. We mark this object out from others by its 
positive qualities and its specific difference. But 
when we pass on to the consideration of a concrete 
being in all its manifoldness of concrete qualities, 
we simply reverse the maxim of Spinoza, and say, 
"Omnis determinatio est affirmatio." We go on to 
add quality to quality until we have summed up the 
whole of the qualities of this being in its concrete 
unity and reality. The larger the number of quali- 
ties, and the higher the rank of qualities sphered 
in any one being, the greater we reckon that being 
to be. Every attribute we see in that being, and 
express in our notion of it, is not a negation of any 



l6 THEISM 

quality which it may be supposed to possess, but an 
affirmation of the truth that the being has this partic- 
ular excellence in addition to all the others we have 
spoken of, and possesses them in the harmony of 
one existence. Conceptions which have real worth, 
that is, those conceptions which express the imma- 
nent nature and relations of the concrete world, 
are set free from the merely negative limitation set 
by the maxim of Spinoza, and rejoice in the freedom 
of doing real positive work, and of building up a 
world of real knowledge which will approximate 
closer and closer to the world of real existence. 
But this is the real method and work of science 
when we regard it in the practice of the masters 
of science, who have widened the boundaries of 
knowledge. No doubt, Spinoza tells us ("Ethics," 
Book I., Prop. IX.), that "the more reality or being 
a thing has, the greater the number of its attributes," 
but that is only to say that Spinoza sometimes forgot 
his axiom, " Omnis deter minatio est negatio," for by 
this axiom we can reach nothing save the most general 
and empty abstraction, being without attributes, a 
mere indeterminate something. It was not the pur- 
pose of Spinoza to start from being in general, or to 
reach that conception as the outcome of his reason- 
ing. He desired to attain to the knowledge of the 
absolute totality of things, conceived as a unity in 
which all particular existences might find a place and 
serve as elements in an inteUigible whole. He has 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD i/ 

a real apprehension of the unreal and imaginary 
character of mere conceptions, and he warns his 
readers against them. Straightway he himself falls 
under their yoke, and actually proceeds according 
to the method of abstraction. Being with no attri- 
butes at all gives place to the most determinate 
being conceivable, namely, being constituted by an 
infinite number of attributes. What he did accom- 
plish was to dissolve all into the ultimate abstraction 
of being from which there was no way of return to 
an actual world ; what he meant to do was to relate 
all the parts to that absolute being which he con- 
ceived to be the presupposition of thought and 
being, and the unity of all existence. His is a con- 
spicuous instance of the fate which befalls great 
thinkers and great systems, when they depart from 
a method which alone can conserve the manifold re- 
lations of reality with a regard to the necessity 
of thinking them as related parts of a system. 

Being attenuated till it is altogether without attri- 
butes, substance, without any determination or char- 
acterization, force, or the persistence of force, gives 
no intelligible starting-point for the knowledge of 
reality. These are merely abstractions, easy to reach, 
and worthless when we have reached them. Leav- 
ing them on one side and following in the steps of 
the masters of science who have striven to see the 
world in its actual movement, let us see what kind 
of world is revealed to us through their guidance, 
c 



1 8 THEISM 

It is an intelligible world, a world existing in one 
space and in one time, a world which moves under 
law. No doubt our masters present that world to 
us under aspects, and each presents it under that 
aspect in which he is most interested, and with which 
he is most familiar. It takes many sciences to bring 
us near to the real world, but by bringing the sci- 
ences together we may come to some apprehension 
of the magnificence of the world. At least we may 
have some notion of the complexity and simplicity 
of the world, and that it looks like a work worthy 
of an infinite intelligence. It is a greater world than 
our fathers dreamt of, it has lengthened in time, 
broadened in space, and has a wider sweep of order 
and a vaster rhythm than men thought of till recent 
thoughts were apprehended by the human mind. 
The story of the making of the worlds is written 
on the wastes of space, and carried on the waves of 
light to the remotest stars. When we go out on a 
clear starlight night and look up to the Milky Way, 
or gaze on the bands of Orion, at first we think that 
we are reading a contemporary story. We are soon 
told, and it is difficult to realize it, that we are read- 
ing pages of the history of the universe, some written 
a thousand years ago and some yesterday. I am not 
to trouble with figures, which might be easily given, 
but it may be said that the light which falls on our 
eyes tells us of the state of the star from which it 
comes as that star was when the light started on 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 19 

its tremulous way. It tells us of the state of that 
star when Marathon was fought, so long it has taken 
to reach us across the depths of space. Inconceiv- 
able magnitudes, distances unimaginable, yet across 
them light can travel, and the ether, the undulations 
of which are light, stretches all the way. Had we 
eyes to read the story of what we see on any evening 
on which we look up to the starry heavens, what 
a story it would be. The drama of the separate 
worlds which make up the universe of matter might 
be read there. There are worlds in the making, 
some of them only in their infancy, not yet arrived 
at definite form. There are masses of glowing gas, 
the raw material of ordered worlds, masses gathered 
into something like form, worlds in the full maturity 
of worldhood, and worlds that seemingly have had 
their day, and have passed into the ways of decay. 

Everywhere, too, as these worlds and systems exist 
in one space and one time, so they seem to be built 
up of the same kind of- stuff, and to be ruled by the 
same laws that obtain on this earth. The light that 
reaches us from the most distant star may be broken 
up and dispersed on its arrival here, and on being 
wisely asked will tell us what were the conditions 
of its source, and what were the elements of matter 
that sent it forth. The main thing for me is that 
there is a story to tell, and a story which we have so 
far read, so far at least as to give us reason to be- 
lieve that it is an intelligible story. Written in the 



20 THEISM 

light that speeds across space, told by the light itself 
as it reaches us, do you not think that if our intelli- 
gence can read it, some intelligence akin to ours 
instructed the light to record it ? At all events we 
may rest in the belief that we are in one universe 
with the most distant body in space, that light there 
and here is constituted the same way, and that there 
is one medium which makes the transmission of light 
possible. Nor is this the only universal statement 
we can make about the universe. The stuff which 
makes up our world is the same stuff made up in the 
same kinds as we know on the earth and in the solar 
system. Hydrogen is hydrogen, vibrating in the 
same time, emitting or absorbing the same light as 
it does here. The same attractions and repulsions 
characterize the matter of the stars, and the particles 
of matter attract each other directly as the masses 
and inversely as the square of the distance. This 
seems true of all material worlds, that they are made 
of the same stuff, and are ruled by the same laws. 
Along with the sameness which unites them, there 
seems to be endless variety in the systems which 
occur in the sidereal heavens. Systems of binary 
stars revolving round a common centre of gravity, 
systems like our solar system only more complex, 
and systems so varied and complex that they pass 
our understanding. Nay, science is dreaming of 
an earlier evolution, lying be3"ond the stage of atoms 
and molecules, as these are known to us. It dreams 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 21 

of a pre-atomic state of matter, in which the so-called 
atoms of the chemist represent not the origin of 
things, but only early stages of the evolutionary 
process. Science deems that at present in the atmos- 
pheres of the suns and stars there are forces at work 
which prevent the formation of atoms and molecules, 
such as are aggregated at the temperature of the 
earth. However that may be, and we may wish our 
scientific friends success in every attempt to widen 
the bounds of human knowledge, certain it is that in 
the systems that make up the material universe we 
know of matter in all the stages of evolution. There 
are stars which are growing hotter, stars at their 
maximum of heat, stars and systems that are growing 
cooler. Worlds in the making, worlds made, and 
worlds passing into decay; we are bewildered with 
the magnificence of the world disclosed to us by 
science. It is an ordered world which we are called 
on to contemplate. If there is a pre-atomic state 
of matter, it exists under other conditions than those 
which obtain on the earth, and our means of dissoci- 
ation are too limited to enable us to reproduce that 
condition of matter. For us, atoms are ultimate and 
cannot be brought to a finer shape. This, also, has 
a bearing on the intelligibility of the world which 
is a postulate of theism. The original stuff is made 
with a bias, and has an invincible tendency to aggre- 
gate itself into certain irreversible patterns. Chemi- 
cal elements are formed which maintain their 



22 THEISM 

identity and continuity in all circumstances, and no 
amount of work which we can bring to bear on them 
can break them up into simpler forms. One stuff 
which at certain temperatures passes into irreversible 
forms ; forms which abide amid all changes as the 
elementary atoms out of which ordered systems are 
built up ; this simply gives us a wider, grander pur- 
pose than we were wont to think of. In that primi- 
tive state of matter there is an inherent tendency 
to aggregate itself into certain abiding forms, and 
these forms have certain properties and relations 
which enable them to build up a stable system, and 
on that stable system there have been built other 
systems, such as life, intelligence, a mind capable 
of reading the whole story. Such is the kind of 
universe we live in. 

When we pass from astronomical physics to the 
world which chemistry discloses to our view we come 
to a story equally wonderful, and equally intelligible. 
These atoms which to us are ultimate have proper- 
ties which can be understood. They are of various 
kinds, each perfect in its kind, and are related to each 
other in such a way as to form a system. To de- 
scribe them would simply be to transcribe what is 
within the reach of every one. Their weights, their 
combining properties, their preference for one combi- 
nation rather than another, their periodicity, which is 
so remarkable that elements were predicted, their 
properties described before they were discovered, 



I 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 23 

reveal to us an ordered world which may well arouse 
our admiration, and reward our investigation. Tak- 
ing for granted the facts disclosed to us by chemistry 
and the theoretic conclusions established by chem- 
ists, we observe that we have made an advance and 
have become acquainted with a new set of properties 
and laws. Gravitation is still with us, and matter 
still attracts matter according to a certain law, tem- 
perature abides, force, as we knew it in physics, re- 
mains, but we become acquainted with other forces 
and other laws than those we knew in physics. Two 
elementary bodies combine together on certain con- 
ditions, and stick together until work is done on 
them to make them part. Each atom of matter has 
its own way of action, and insists on combining with 
others, only on its own conditions. Many other 
things might be said had we time. These are said, 
however, for the purpose of showing that chemistry 
is compelled to make its own assumptions, and it cer- 
tainly has the right to do so. You may say that here 
we are still in the domain of mechanism, and are 
working under the dominion of mechanical law. I 
am not disposed to quarrel about terms, but if you 
insist on calUng this mechanical, you must recognize 
a difference in the physical and chemical mechanical 
assumptions. In physics you deal only with the rela- 
tions which can be subsumed under gravitation, heat, 
and so on ; in chemistry you deal with attractions and 
repulsions of another order. Oxygen and hydrogen 



24 THEISM 

do not obey the law of inverse squares, nor can you 
calculate the law of repulsion of atoms in an explo- 
sive mixture. Or if you can make the calculation, you 
must use a calculus other than that which you use in 
mere physics. I make this observation for the pur- 
pose of showing that each science has its own method, 
makes its own assumptions, and deals with its own 
subject in its own way. I shall have occasion to say 
this frequently as we pass on, and I make it broadly 
now. A physical problem is one thing, a chemical 
problem is another ; physical dynamics is approached 
in one way, a problem in chemical dynamics is solved 
only by a chemical method. These observations are 
necessary in view of the vast generalizations in some 
of the great systems in vogue at the present hour, in 
which it is assumed that the method and the assump- 
tions of physics are sufficient for the explanation of 
the universe. It is assumed that mechanical law is 
sufficient for the explanation of all phenomena. On 
the contrary, we find that this is insufficient, even for 
the explanation of the simplest problem in chemistry. 
For physics deals only with ponderable matter, while 
chemistry deals with its own conception of energies 
arising from intrinsic differences of matter, and con- 
sequently it penetrates into a region inaccessible to 
physics. It may be possible to arrive at a dynamic 
of the energy set up by the interaction of chemical 
elements, but this will be a mechanism of a finer 
order. The contention is that the- method of the 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 2$ 

simpler, more abstract, science is inadequate to deal 
with problems of another order. No doubt physics 
is helpful to chemistry, as both are helpful in biology, 
and all three are helpful in psychology, but the help- 
fulness would cease, or become hurtfulness, if they 
attempted to rule out all they could not grasp. As we 
shall see, this is constantly being done, to the injury 
of clear thinking ; and fruitful progress in our attempt 
to understand the world in its concrete reality is hin- 
dered by over-generalization, and by the extension of 
a method beyond its limits. 

When we unite the results of physics and chem- 
istry, we reach a fuller view of reality than when we 
look at the world with the eyes of each separately. 
We recognize that matter is one, and that matter is 
made up of parts ; that there is an energy of mass 
and position, and also an energy arising out of the 
relations of different kinds of matter each to each. 
The uniformity of mechanical law which has regard 
only to impressed force is supplemented by the law 
of attraction known as chemical affinity, and the 
compounds arising out of chemical combination. 
Masses count, but atoms count also; and there is 
the unity of many elements in one system. 

Ere we leave the vision of the world disclosed to 
us by physics and chemistry, let us take a glance 
at another aspect of their work. These sciences 
deal not only with those aspects of reality which 
have already been mentioned, they strive to deal 



26 THEISM 

with the unseen agent or medium which has been 
postulated to account for the phenomena of light, and 
other related phenomena. Assumed to account for 
the phenomena of light, it has been found necessary 
for the understanding of other phenomena. The 
characteristics of the ether are thus set forth by 
Clerk Maxwell : ** It appears, therefore, that certain 
phenomena in electricity and magnetism lead to 
the same conclusion as those of optics; namely, 
that there is an setherial medium pervading all 
bodies, and modified only in degree by their pres- 
ence; that the parts of this medium are capable 
of being set in motion by electric currents and 
magnets; that this motion is communicated from 
one part of the medium to another by forces aris- 
ing from the connection of these parts ; that under 
the action of these forces there is a certain yielding 
depending on the elasticity of these connections ; and 
that, therefore, energy in two different forms may 
exist in the medium, the one form being the actual 
energy of motion of its parts, the other being the 
potential energy stored up in the connections in 
virtue of their elasticity. Thus, then, we are led to 
the conception of a compUcated mechanism capable 
of a vast variety of motion, but at the same time so 
connected that the motion of one part depends, ac- 
cording to definite relations, on the motion of other 
parts, these motions being communicated by forces 
arising from the relative displacement of the con- 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 2 J 

nected parts, in virtue of their elasticity. Such a 
mechanism must be subject to the general laws of 
dynamics, and we ought to be able to work out all 
the consequences of its motion, provided we know 
the form of the relation between the motions of the 
parts." (Quoted in Glazebrook's "James Clerk Max- 
well and Modern Physics," p. 179.) 

Maxwell was able to deduce the mechanical 
and electric actions which take place, and these 
have been verified by subsequent experiment. Wire- 
less telegraphy and other wonderful phenomena 
illustrate the insight of Maxwell, and bear witness 
to the existence of the mechanism of the ether, the 
stresses of which seem equally related to the phe- 
nomena and electricity and light, if these are not 
at bottom one and the same, as they are certainly 
most intimately related. I mention these things 
without dwelling on them, as I desire to call at- 
tention to the boldness of the conception and the 
magnificence of the results worked out by means of 
it. To suppose a medium filling all space, pervad- 
ing all forms of matter in every state of matter, 
stresses in which can be propagated with the speed 
of light across the spaces of the universe, which 
could be a means of communication between the 
worlds which make up the universe, and to be able 
to say what must be the properties, or, at least, 
what some of its properties must be, was certainly 
a bold conception, and a great achievement of the 



28 THEISM 

human mind. If to discover such a medium and 
to investigate its properties is a great triumph of 
intelligence, what must the reality be ? Suppose 
the ether to exist in the form and with the quali- 
ties and functions described by Clerk Maxwell, and 
with other properties and functions unrecognized as 
yet, are we simply to recognize the fact, accept it 
as ultimate, and pass on ? Is that all ? Are we to 
recognize the functions of the ether, to see clearly 
enough that the existence of some such medium 
and of such work as is done by means of it is the 
condition of light and heat in a world otherwise 
dark, cold, and lifeless, and are we not to be allowed 
to think of a purpose and meaning in connection 
with its function and work ? It took intelligence of 
a high order to discover the existence and mean- 
ing of the ether : has the existence of it no rela- 
tion to intelligence ? Are we simply to accept it 
as a fact and think no more about it ? That is the 
attitude which many assume, while some go further 
and say to us with more or less authority, that 
order, law, and mechanism are ultimate, and when 
we find these we can dispense with intelligence. 
That raises the question of the relation of order 
and intelligence, and as to whether the human 
mind can ever rest in any explanation of the order 
of the world which leaves it unrelated to intelli- 
gence. Leaving aside all questions as to the seat 
of the intelligence, whether immanent or tran- 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 29 

scendent, within or without the world, surely on the 
general question there can be no manner of hesi- 
tation as to the answer of a rational being, con- 
scious that he is in a rational universe. We know 
that the world, as it appears to science, has a most 
definite relation to intelligence. Science is the work 
of mind, of the intelligence of a succession of 
thinkers, who received the work from them who 
went before and handed it down to those who 
bore the torch onward to ever larger results. If 
we bow in reverence before those who made science, 
and gratefully recognize the worth and greatness 
of their intelligence, what is to be our attitude in 
presence of the great reality of the universe, so 
much greater than the mind of the wisest, ablest, 
and greatest of men can conceive } Is there not 
in the phenomena of the universe, roughly out- 
lined, traces of an intelligence akin to the intelli- 
gence of Newton and Maxwell } Of the character 
or that inteUigent power manifest in the universe, 
disclosed to us by physics and chemistry, we are 
able to say nothing further at present, save that 
the intelUgence is of an order equal to the pro- 
duction of the phenomena. Look at it from the 
mechanical point of view, consider the phenomena 
of the ether, its relations to ponderable matter, and 
the functions it performs in the universe ; and can 
we not say that as it has a meaning, so it must 
have a purpose.'' Think of the vastness of the 



30 THEISM 

movement of the universe, of its interrelations, of 
its sweep through time, everchanging but chang- 
ing in a way that can be understood, working out 
coordinated harmonies of the most magnificent 
kind, some of which we can read, and shall we 
not say that the grandest thing we know is pres- 
ent here ? 

At all events, whether our men of science allow 
us to say that mind is here or whether they do not 
allow us, we may feel grateful to them for the con- 
ception they have enabled us to form of the mag- 
nificence of the universe. They have enabled us to 
look out at the wonder of the universe as it seems 
to exist now ; they have taught us to look back on 
an illimitable past, and to see the evolving worlds 
on their way to something, and they show us that 
everywhere there are method, order, law. If they 
insist that we shall simply rest content in the gran- 
deur they enable us to see, and constrain us to 
regard it as an ultimate fact, well, we must part 
company with them at this point, and respectfully 
say that we must take up our burden without them, 
and seek to interpret the facts for ourselves, A 
system that at this end needs an intelligence to 
understand it must have something to do with in- 
telligence at the other end. Such a one-sided refer- 
ence as is presented to us by them is, to speak with 
all respect, scarcely intelligible. At present we are 
content to rest our case on the fact of order, and to 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 31 

say that order implies intelligence. The greatness 
of the order, the vastness of the rhythm of the uni- 
verse, may increase our wonder and deepen our 
apprehension of the greatness of the intelligence 
which caused and made the order, but it does not 
increase the strength of the argument. 

We then go on, whether science accompanies us 
or no. We cannot rest in the mere discovery of 
the order, law, method of procedure, of the uni- 
verse. This, for us, can never be ultimate. We 
know of one kind of cause which can account for 
an order that can be understood, and we know of 
only one. We know intelligence as it has produced 
the works of artists, poets, philosophers, men of 
science, and we do not know enough to put any 
limit on the extent and kind of work which intelli- 
gence may produce. True, the intelligence which 
we know is not quite of the creative kind, it works 
within the limits of human experience, and in most 
cases it is striving to read a meaning already given 
in the facts of nature. But the intelligence that we 
know — limited, conditioned, receptive though it be — 
is yet sufficient to give us the idea of an intelligence 
which has no limits, to which we can set no bounds, 
which can set the bounds to the material on which 
it acts and prescribe its nature, and the method of 
its working. 

I have made no remark about the fact that there 
is power at work in the universe, because that fact 



32 THEISM 

is not disputed. Nor is it questioned that the power 
at work in the universe is a regulated power that 
works according to a plan, and produces intelligible 
results. Even Mr. Herbert Spencer asserts as much 
as this. He can speak of " an infinite and eternal 
energy from which all things proceed." He will 
not, indeed, allow us to say anything regarding it 
save that it is. It is, he says, absolutely unknow- 
able, and yet he can speak of it as energy, as infinite 
and as eternal. It works in the universe, and the 
method of its working Mr. Spencer claims to have 
traced and described in the synthetic philosophy, 
and yet he says that it is unknowable. If it has 
manifested itself, it surely can be known, at least 
as far as it has manifested itself. But we do not 
deal with Mr. Spencer's argument at present. I 
cite his view, that there is power in the universe. 
I call it an intelligible power because it works by 
methods which I can partially understand, to results 
which are orderly and intelligible. As has been 
often observed, I have no other ground than this for 
the inference that the moving bodies I see in the 
street are men and women with an intelligence like 
my own. The grounds of inference are the same, 
and the inference from intelligible results to an in- 
telligence are precisely the same. 

True, the intelligence which informs the universe 
is as much greater than mine as the universe is 
greater than my thought of it. What then } The 



SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE WORLD 33 

power at work in the universe is greater than any 
which I can exert, but that has not hindered men 
from speaking of an infinite and eternal energy. 
It is as legitimate to speak of an eternal intelligence 
as to speak of an eternal energy. 

So far then we have come as to have good grounds 
for saying that the power at work in the world is 
an intelligent power ; we proceed to ask whether we 
can fairly say anything more about that power. 



II 



THE INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION 
FOR LIFE: THE PHYSICAL CHARACTER- 
ISTICS OF LIFE 

Taking the universe as a whole, as disclosed to 
us by science, we have learned that it can be under- 
stood. We infer, also, that it has a meaning wider 
far than the meaning we have been able to grasp. 
Our reading of it is somewhat vague and indefinite, 
and we see that it comes far short of the fulness of 
meaning in the concrete reality. So far we have 
seen only aspects of the reality, but these aspects 
are set in relation to intelligence. Narrowing our 
sphere of operations, and coming to those modes of 
existence nearer to us than the fixed stars, limiting 
our view to the system of which our own planet 
forms an integral part, let us ask here, too, the 
guidance of science. I again take from science 
simply what I need. Following the lead of science 
I read a wondrous story. I am led back into a past 
that begins long ago. The story of our system that 
is told began some fifty million years ago. That 
beginning is not absolute, it is only the stage at 

34 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 35 

which science takes up the story of the solar system. 
It does not pretend to speak of the stages of the 
history of the solar system, before the material of 
it lay as an attenuated cloud of nebulous matter 
stretching from the centre, out on all sides to the 
utmost bounds of the orbit of the most distant 
planet. That mass of nebulous matter being given, 
subject to the ordinary attractions and repulsions, 
and other properties characteristic of matter, it 
has been thought that the evolution of the solar 
system may be explained. Difficulties of various 
kinds may be raised, but I do not raise them now. 
For whatever may be made of them, and however 
perplexing they may be, there is no doubt that some 
form of the nebular theory is true. At all events 
we may have a clear vision of our planet existing as 
a molten globe, moving in an orbit not widely dif- 
ferent from the orbit traced out by it at present, in 
its annual circuit around the sun. The double revo- 
lution round its own axis and round the sun are 
there, and the consequences of these movements 
can be traced on the shape and form of the earth. 
The form of the earth is precisely that which a 
molten body, moving under such conditions, would 
assume. 

Starting afresh from that position, and tracing 
out the results of it, science reads for us the life 
history of the earth so far as it can. A body slowly 
cooling in the same way as bodies do cool, with the 



36 THEISM 

regulated changes of form, which ensue on the 
process of cooUng, with the chemical changes of 
material form, which arise when a lowered tempera- 
ture allows chemical affinity to have freedom of 
action. There comes a time when the earth obtains 
a solid crust. A series of changes worked out under 
law leads on to an earth with a diversified surface. 
Into the details of geology it is not necessary to 
enter. They are familiar and easily accessible. 
The stately procession of orderly facts may be read 
in any text-book of value. As we read we see that 
we are led on from the more simple to the more 
complex, from a state of matter comparatively simple 
to a state of the utmost complexity, from a stuff 
comparatively homogeneous to one highly hetero- 
geneous ; and we are constrained to think not of a 
unity made up of one property, but of a unity con- 
stituted out of many elements held together in virtue 
of their relations each to each and each to the whole. 
The differentiations become more numerous and 
more decisive, while the unity becomes more distinct. 
The story of the evolution of the inorganic world is 
long, and full of interest, and, whether they mean to 
do so or not, our scientific guides have told it — have, 
in fact, been constrained to tell it — as a preparation 
for the introduction of life. I do not think they 
meant to tell the story so, but they have told it, and 
have shown us a world actually being prepared for 
the introduction of life. What a series of converging 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 37 

conditions was needed in order to make life possible, 
as life exists on the earth. Apart from the question 
of whether this convergence of conditions was in- 
tended or no, we lay stress on the fact that the con- 
vergence is there, and the result is the same as if they 
were meant. To enumerate some of these conditions : 
The distance of the earth from the sun ; the revolu- 
tion of the earth round its own axis, which makes the 
succession of day and night possible ; the circuit of 
the earth round the sun, which gives the succession 
of seedtime and harvest, summer and winter; the 
distribution of the surface of the earth into land 
and water, elevations and depressions ; the great fact 
that the earth was enabled somehow to keep those 
chemical elements which are indispensable to life, so 
that even the most volatile of them should not escape 
into the wastes of space ; the capacity of these ele- 
ments to be worked up to higher levels and to more 
complex forms under the touch of life ; the relations 
of the atmosphere and the qualities of it, and the 
seemingly exact calculation of the range of tempera- 
ture within which life would be possible, — these are 
some of the conditions which have converged in order 
to make Hfe possible on the earth. 

These are not, however, all the conditions which 
might be set forth in this connection, but they are suf- 
ficient for our purpose. Observe the story is told by 
science and told in its own way. It is dealing, ac- 
cording to its wont, with a system of efficient causes. 



38 THEISM 

It has not gone beyond its own sphere, and has made 
no assumptions beyond what it can verify. It has 
called on no forces save those which are at work now. 
It told us of the molten earth, of its gradual cooling, 
of its consolidation, of the slow differentiation into air, 
water, land ; it told of igneous rocks, of their denuda- 
tion, of the wearing down of rocks and the building 
of rocks, and of many other processes, all told in the 
way of science ; and then it told us of the introduction 
of life, and showed to us the first trace of life at a 
certain geological epoch. We find on reading the 
story that it has been telling us a story of prepa- 
rations for the introduction of life. We are inclined 
to say there is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough- 
hew them as we will. 

I do not expect them to draw the inference that I 
draw. Indeed, many of the men of science expressly 
repudiate such an inference, and get quite angry and 
say hard things of the capacity of those who venture 
to draw such an inference. Well, if I were to tell 
the story of the introduction of life from the point of 
view of purpose, I would tell it in precisely the same 
way and in the same terms as it has been told by 
science. Long preparations stretching to the bounds 
of conceivable time, reaching to the farthest world, 
ether with its undulations, matter in all its quaUties, 
all set in certain relations, and made to take a certain 
course through millions of years, and life becomes 
possible, and Hfe is. I call it a purposive line of 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 39 

action, and who has the right to gainsay me ? I have 
followed the leading of science, and as I followed I 
saw that it used its own method, and no other. The 
conception of causality, nay, the conception of me- 
chanical causation, was the main conception through 
which science looked at the changes of the history of 
the world, and we find that even that conception led 
us on to this result, that mechanical law was a prepa- 
ration for the introduction of Ufe. The conception of 
causality as employed in the physical sciences does 
not require a scientist to say more than that there 
are certain fixed conditions under which all the 
changes in the world take place. It is certainly a 
great gain to know the fixed conditions under which 
changes take place, and we rejoice to know these. 
When, however, following out the changes that take 
place under these fixed conditions, and tracing out 
these changes themselves, we find that they converge 
toward a fixed point, what are we to say } May we 
not go back and read the story again with a fresh 
light, and from a new point of view } The fixed con- 
ditions under which all changes take place are them- 
selves indicative of intelligence, all we do when we 
regard the changes from the new point of view is 
simply to enhance our idea of the character of the 
intelligence that causes these fixed conditions to con- 
verge toward a predetermined end. 

The question of a predetermined end might have 
been raised at almost any point in the story which 



40 THEISM 

science tells of the making of the worlds, but to raise 
it then and there would not have added to the clear- 
ness of the issue. It seems best to raise it at the 
point where, in the history of time and time's changes, 
the great transition from non-hving to living matter 
took place. For with the introduction of life the 
terminology of science, and the conceptions with 
which science works, necessarily change. From this 
time onwards purpose is in evidence, and the lan- 
guage descriptive of changes in living matter, even 
when used by those who profess to think that such 
changes are ultimately mechanical, is full of indica- 
tions of purpose. Now it is not well to spHt nature 
up into compartments, or to fill it with distinctions 
which seem to shut one part out from relation to 
another part, and therefore we take our stand on 
the conception that even, in that part of nature 
which seems under the domain of mechanical law, 
purpose is not excluded. Mechanical law is the way 
whereby purpose realizes its end. In our own ex- 
perience necessity is the presupposition of freedom. 
Assuming at this stage of our argument that free- 
dom is possible, then we say that it is possible only 
in a world ruled according to fixed laws, and which 
changes under fixed conditions. Speech is possible 
because of the fact that words have definite meanings, 
and because language has determined laws of con- 
struction. I say nothing of other fixed conditions, 
such as the laws of acoustics and so on, which are also 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 41 

necessary conditions for the possibility of communica- 
tion from man to man. To this I may return later on, 
and in other connections ; I make the remark here to 
show that the fixed necessities which can be expressed 
in mechanical law are both the presupposition of pur- 
pose and the means by which purpose is reahzed. 

Thus we do not interfere, in any way, with the 
work or the method of mechanical science, when we 
take their results and show that they may be read in 
another fashion. Nor do we bring to the reading of 
their results any new or unheard-of principle. We 
are simply doing what, in other spheres of thought, 
we do every day. Nor is it contended that it would 
be wise or safe to take the idea of purpose as a clew 
to guide us in the investigation of physical phenom- 
ena. There are many considerations which warn us 
that such a clew might lead astray, and be unfruitful. 
The main reason is our ignorance, and our tendency 
to see purpose where we cannot give any satisfactory 
reason for its existence. But surely that is no reason 
why we should refuse to recognize purpose, when it 
is almost forced on us by science itself. The very 
fact that we are suspicious of final causes, and that 
we rigidly exclude the thought of them in physical 
investigation, ought to enable us to recognize them 
with all promptness, when they present themselves 
to us as the outcome of a series of physical inves- 
tigations conducted without regard to them, from 
which they were altogether excluded. 



42 THEISM 

Such seems to be the case with the convergence 
of causes, which brought about the introduction of 
life on this globe. We are driven to the conclusion 
that this was no accident, but the outcome of a long 
series of preparations, and that it was meant. There 
can be no controversy as to the convergence of con- 
ditions. No one lays more stress on this than the 
evolutionist, or even the mechanical evolutionist, who 
attempts to set forth evolution as a distribution of 
matter and motion. Accepting the accounts of the 
distribution and redistribution of matter and motion, 
we see that the process of distribution had proceeded 
very far, and differentiation and integration had run 
their course for a very lengthened period before things 
were ripe for the advent of life. 

I do not lay stress here on the mere fact of this 
fresh departure. I do not ask science to account for 
the origin of life, for I should be told that science 
has nothing to do with origins. Nor do I care to 
rest the theistic argument on origins alone. For if 
I cannot find the Divine Being in what is fixed, 
stated, settled, I fear I shall not find Him any- 
where. Clearly, however, he who believes in intelli- 
gence and power, as being at the basis of things, is 
not in the same position, in the presence of new de- 
partures, as he is who has undertaken to account for 
all things by means of principles, which he has known 
only in connection with the world as it was before 
the new departure was taken. It means that up to 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 43 

the point at which life entered into the world, science 
had no reason to widen its conception of the world 
so as to recognize the conception of life. It did not 
need to recognize organization, or organic relations 
in its conception of being. Being as conservative as 
are all the attitudes of the human mind, science is 
unwilling to widen its conceptions, or recognize the 
need of coordinating its notions — with conservative 
energy it has clung to the desire to make its old 
machinery cope with the new problem. Hence the 
efforts, which we make free to call despairing efforts, 
to reduce the facts of life to such a minimum as 
would make methods of physics and chemistry ade- 
quate to their explanation. The phenomena of life, it 
is contended, must be explicable by the principles of 
physics and chemistry. Did not inorganic exist- 
ence precede organic existence } was there not a 
time when life was not 1 Now life is ; and must not 
life be the product of inorganic existence t 

It is not necessary to enter deeply into the dead 
controversy about the origin of life. I am old enough 
to remember the shout of triumph which arose when 
an experimenter declared that he had seen the rise 
of living from non-living matter, and the consequent 
gladness of those who desired to exclude the recogni- 
tion of forces other than those which were physical 
and chemical. Nor can one remember, without a 
smile, the short-lived Bathybius. Speedily it turned 
out that the spontaneous generation of Dr. Bastian's 



44 THEISM 

bacteria arose, not from non-living matter, but from 
infusions imperfectly sterilized, and nowadays it is 
the sure conviction of science that life comes only 
from life. Still the longing to believe the opposite 
lingers, and now the wish to believe takes the form of 
an inverted prediction, that is a prediction not with 
respect to the future, but with respect to the past, 
that if the gentleman, who wishes to believe, had 
lived at the time when life appeared, he would ex- 
pect to see it evolve from non-living matter. At all 
events, the transition of non-living into living matter, 
without the intervention of life, does not belong to 
our era. 

" What is implied in the origination of life is not 
that inorganic nature produced life, but that a new 
form of existence presented itself at a certain period 
of time in the history of the earth. But this life, 
although it has for the first time presented itself, is 
not something that has come into being by a power 
belonging to inorganic things. And no one would 
be so absurd as to say that it originated from itself. 
Its origination can be explained only on the supposi- 
tion that it was implicit in the nature of existence as 
a whole. Outside of the unity that comprehends all 
possible existence, there is nothing ; and therefore life, 
when it appears, merely manifests in an explicit form 
what was already wrapped up in the one single exist- 
ence that is manifested in all modes of existence. But, 
if this one all-inclusive unity is now seen to involve 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 45 

within itself organic as well as inorganic existence, 
its nature cannot be comprehended by looking at 
either apart from the other. It is neither inorganic 
nor organic, but both. Further, it implies that or- 
ganic existence is of this nature that, while it con- 
tains all that is implied in inorganic nature, it also 
manifests characteristics that are peculiar to itself." 
(" Outline of Philosophy," by Professor Watson, p. 
181.) The paragraph from Dr. Watson expressed 
my meaning so exactly that I could not help appro- 
priating it. Yet I do not commit myself to all that 
is implied in it, for the passage quoted is organically 
related to a whole system of philosophy, which I do 
not hold in all its impHcations. I quote it, therefore, 
without prejudice. I agree with it in saying that life 
cannot be derived from inorganic matter, and also in 
the implication that the intelligent ground of the 
world must be a living power ; what further is to be 
said will appear in due time. 

Meanwhile let us look at the world as it appears 
under the light shed on it by this fresh appearance. 
From the scientific point of view the contrast be- 
tween living and non-living matter has been made the 
ground for the division of the natural sciences into 
two great groups, known as the biological and the 
physical sciences. Here we have to do with matter 
which has entered into a peculiar state or condition. 
Without entering into the vexed question of the exist- 
ence of vital force, or claiming a distinctive existence 



46 THEISM 

of vitalism, we may at least point out that matter 
takes on new forms and peculiar properties which 
are not found in inorganic matter. These properties 
are still properties of matter, and many claim that 
they can be explained mechanically. Professor Hux- 
ley said in his Belfast address (1874), " In the seven- 
teenth century the idea that the physical processes 
of life are capable of being explained in the same 
way as other physical phenomena, and, therefore, 
that the living body is a mechanism, was proved to be 
true for certain classes of vital action; and, having 
thus taken firm root in irrefragable fact, this concep- 
tion has not only successfully repelled every assault 
which has been made upon it, but has steadily grown 
in force and extent of application until it is now the 
expressed or implied fundamental proposition of the 
whole doctrine of scientific physiology." It is evident 
that Professor Huxley uses the word ''mechanism" 
in a wider sense than that which the word has in 
physics. If it be a mechanism, it is one of a peculiar 
kind. For Huxley, speaking when he was not on the 
war-path, uses words which concede all that we need 
for the great distinction between living and lifeless 
matter. Speaking of the distinctive properties of 
living matter, he says, " Its chemical composition 
containing, as it invariably does, one or more forms 
of a complex compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
and nitrogen, the so-called protein (which has never 
yet been obtained except as a product of living 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 47 

bodies) united with a large proportion of water, and 
forming the chief constituent of a substance which, 
in its primary unmodified state is known as proto- 
plasm." (" Encyclopaedia Britannica," art. Biology?) 
All that is needed is contained in the statement with- 
in brackets, in the foregoing quotation, namely, that 
protein has never been obtained except as a product 
of living bodies. It is open to the inorganic chemist 
to insist on the properties of the various elements 
which are found in protein ; he may point out the 
vigorous combining power of oxygen, the inertia of 
nitrogen, the great molecular mobility of hydrogen, 
and the allotropic properties of carbon, sulphur, 
and phosphorus, as has been done by Mr. Herbert 
Spencer is his ** Principles of Biology," and it may 
be shown that all these are of significance when con- 
sidered as properties of living matter; but the fact 
remains that these properties remained hidden until 
they were revealed by the touch of life. 

Taking at present only that feature of life which 
deals with the chemical composition of living matter, 
we see that Ufe has revealed to chemists a new do- 
main. It is easily understood how reluctant they 
would be to recognize something involving facts and 
principles which they had not seen while dealing with 
inorganic matter. We can sympathize with them in 
their efforts to build up without the aid of life those 
compounds which are the usual products of living 
bodies. In some respects they appear to have been 



48 THEISM 

successful, but they accomplish at great cost and 
labour and with many appliances what life is doing 
easily every moment. The success has not as yet 
been very great. Even were it more successful the 
result would have little bearing on the controversy 
between vitalism and non-vitalism. It is well to be 
assured that life has no substance peculiar to itself, 
and that every element found in living matter is 
found also in lifeless matter. It is well to know that 
living matter is subject to all the physical conditions 
which obtain in body as such. It is subject to gravi- 
tation, it exists only within certain limits of tempera- 
ture, it breathes, when it does breathe, in accordance 
with laws of gaseous diffusion, and in fact the laws of 
physics and chemistry are operative on the matter 
which is living as on matter which is dead. For all 
these facts assure us that we are in one world, and 
that the organic and inorganic are most intimately 
related to one another. 

It is not to be denied that the advent of life re- 
vealed within the world of matter new possibilities, 
and achieved positive results of the most wonderful 
kind. Without the introduction of anything new in 
the way of chemical elements, or without drawing on 
any physical force unknown, or unused in physics, it 
has seized the elements and transformed them, lifted 
them to a higher level, and sent them forth to new 
issues. How it has done it we may faintly guess, but 
we do not know. Certainly we shall never know if we 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 49 

stubbornly refuse to recognize that we are unable 
to explain them by the methods and assumptions 
which we found adequate in other spheres. 

Life enters into the world and suddenly the world 
takes on a new meaning. The elements seem to 
recognize the hand of a master and quietly assume 
new combinations, enter on new forms, obey new 
laws, and begin a new course of evolution. Not only 
does it teach to chemistry a new series of lessons, 
and give to physics new meanings, it opens to us a 
new world for the understanding of which we must 
learn a number of new conceptions. Living matter 
does not only contain those peculiar bodies which we 
call proteids, it has the power of manufacturing them 
out of other substances. Every living organism is a 
stream into which a number of elements of matter 
constantly flow in, and a number as constantly flow 
out. But the inflow and outflow are arranged so as 
to be kept from any interference with the identity of 
the organism. The material particles of the organism 
are never the same at any two moments ; the organ- 
ism is one and the same throughout all its history. 
Moment by moment it is being disintegrated, and 
moment by moment it is renewed by the taking in of 
new matter which it raises to a level fit for its use. 
Thus in a constant series of changes it maintains its 
identity, and keeps up its correspondence with its 
environment. Clearly here we have to do not with 
the composition of forces and a resultant. Pressure 



50 THEISM 

from behind and movement in the line of least re- 
sistance will not avail toward the complicated move- 
ment of a living organism, however simple it may be. 
Nor will it help us to call to our aid the behaviour of 
crystals, however beautiful and wonderful they may 
be. For crystals grow, if growth be a proper descrip- 
tion of the process, by accretion from without, and 
the matter of crystals undergoes no modification as 
it is laid down according to the pattern of each 
kind of crystal. In an organism the matter is not 
added from without, but taken within, and made to 
undergo a process of union and differentiation until 
it becomes like the molecules it replaces. 

When we read the description of the behaviour of 
living bodies by those who know, and specially when 
they are simply describing them without a controver- 
sial aim, we see that they describe them as if the 
chemical elements obeyed a new law, and were con- 
strained to a new service. Sometimes it is said, as 
by Huxley, that "oxygen seizes on those organic 
molecules that are disposable, lays hold on their ele- 
ments, and combines with them into the new and 
stabler forms, carbonic acid, water, and urea." This 
was only a way of putting the matter which has been 
departed from by more recent science which has seen 
it to be far from a real description of what happens. 
The relations between oxidation and life seem to be 
more compUcated. Oxygen does not lay hold, but is 
itself laid hold of, and is disposed according to the 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 5 1 

needs of the organism. It may be simply handed or 
forced onwards by the Hving cells which grasp it. 
The living cell, and not the amount of oxygen in the 
blood, regulates the consumption of oxygen. As 
with oxygen so with all other elements that enter 
into the structure of Uving bodies. As soon as they 
enter into the service of life, they are acted on in 
new ways, made part of the organic system, and are 
kept in that service while they form part of the 
organism. The freedom of the molecules and their 
return to their simplicity and relative independence 
come with the dissolution of the organism, or with 
the release of the molecule from any connection with 
the organism. 

For any proper understanding of the organism we 
must accept the assumption of the unity of the 
organism. We start not from physics, nor from 
chemistry, but from a conception that recognizes 
the unity of the organism as a whole made up of 
many related parts, each of which has meaning only 
in relation to all the others and to the whole. Any 
description of life involves this, and we must just 
accept life as given, and be content though we are 
unable to derive it from non-living matter. Spencer 
has said, "We find it impossible to think of hfe as 
imported into the unit of protoplasm from without; 
and yet we find it impossible to conceive it as emerg- 
ing from the cooperation of the elements." (" Princi- 
ples of Biology," Vol. I., p. 122, edition 1898.) 



52 THEISM 

We may accept his testimony to the conclusion 
that we are unable to conceive life as a resultant of 
the components, and we may find it difficult to think 
of life as an addition from without, and yet dissent 
from his peculiar theory of metaphysics, and his 
frequent reference to "alternate impossibilities of 
thought." It is scarcely open to any one but him- 
self to keep the unknowable as a convenient store- 
house for the warehousing of difficult problems. His 
followers have ever sought to reduce the number of 
unknowables which he has laid up in store, and some 
of them are impatient with the great "unknowable," 
the father of all the smaller unknowables which ap- 
pear in the Synthetic Philosophy. In the present 
instance, however, we can agree with him that we 
cannot conceive the unity of the organism as emerging 
from the cooperation of the elements. Nor can we 
conceive it as the result of any action of the parts. 
It is curious to find how many of the teachers of 
biological science are unwilling frankly to accept the 
unity of the organism as ultimate. 

To discuss all the questions that arise in connec- 
tion with the conception of the unity of the organism 
would lead us very far afield. The metaphysics of 
biology is something wonderful, equalled only by the 
metaphysics of physical science. We cannot discuss 
it here. Biologists seem always to strive after a deri- 
vation of the unity of a living organism. Research 
seems to give us an organism that works together, 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR UFE 53 

that holds many qualities together in the doing of 
work, and biology strives to account for the origin of 
the unity. Biologists reduce it to a unity of quality, 
or they postulate some agent to the working of which 
they ascribe the unity which is present to their obser- 
vation, or they split up the unity of the organism and 
place a number of elements in mere external relation 
to the organism, and wander about in hopeless at- 
tempts to restore the lost unity. 

It would seem, therefore, that in presence of the 
phenomena of life we ought to widen our concep- 
tions, or, rather, we ought to form new conceptions 
applicable to a new form of experience. We ought 
to learn that there is a wider sense of unity than that 
which we learned in connection with our experience 
of the world without life. An abstract unity was, 
for the most part, quite sufficient for our purpose in 
dealing with problems of physics or chemistry. No 
doubt in chemistry we had to learn that two and two 
did not always make four, sometimes they made one. 
We learned also that a number of separate elements, 
sometimes a large number, come together to make 
one. But it was still possible to consider that the 
unity was constituted by the cooperation of the parts. 
It did tax our power of conception to think them so, 
and it was difficult to think of the chemical fact that 
a number of elements present in the compound in 
exactly the same proportions, and in the same quanti- 
ties, should produce bodies so unlike as they some- 



54 THEISM 

times do. The facts of isomerism show that this is so. 
Thus gradually we came to attach a wider meaning 
to unity. Then came life to give us a still wider con- 
ception to unity, that is, if we are to be true to the 
facts of the case. Now we have to learn to think of 
a unity holding together many elements in a system, 
maintaining that unity while the materials compos- 
ing it come and go, maintaining that unity in^the 
midst of changes within itself and in relatiojn^to its 
environment, and able not only to maintain itself but 
to reproduce other organisms after its likeness. 

To take into our minds the possibiHty of such a 
unity as we have described indicated a great advance 
in our power of thought. And I for one do not 
wonder that men have found it difficult to make the 
advance. There were difficulties from the side of 
science, and difficulties from the side of metaphysics. 
Science was unwilling to widen its terms, and meta- 
physics was unwilling to admit the possibility of a 
unity that was not absolute, or rather to admit any 
unity save that of the absolute. The metaphysical 
difficulties have found expression in Mr. Bradley's 
"Appearance and Reality." Without entering into 
the metaphysical difficulties at this time, we may say 
that, so far at least as biology is concerned, we must 
learn to think in conceptions which, as far as possi- 
ble, will grasp the real ongoing of that about which 
we think. We must think of a unity, the parts of 
which are what they are only in relation to one 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 55 

another and to the whole. It is not allowable to 
take one in abstraction from another, or to think 
of it as if independent. We may try to do so if 
we please, but at the cost of moving away from the 
concrete reality which we seek to understand. We 
may speak, if we choose, of an environment and of 
an organism, and speak of them as brought together, 
but we must constantly remind ourselves that this 
is only our way of speaking, for these are only given 
in relation to one another. We may also speak of 
parts of the organism, and break it up into aspects, 
but that again is only our way of speaking, and we 
have to strive to think things together, as we find 
them exist together in our experience. 

When we have won this new experience, and have 
widened our notions to correspond, we go back to 
look at the universe in a new light. It is a universe 
of a new kind containing in it a kind of existence not 
recognized before. It is also a universe that has 
made a greater demand on our intelligence, and 
called for a greater intellectual effort to understand 
it. The ongoing of it is more complex, and the 
wonder of it infinitely greater. Also the relative 
independence of what is in the world is greater. 
Here is something that lives, maintains itself, sub- 
dues alien matter, and turns it to its own uses, that 
grows, and produces other things that live and grow, 
which is so made that it is made to make itself. Its 
maintenance depends on its own activity. Shall we 



56 THEISM 

not say that this is a greater world than that dis- 
closed to us in the worlds revealed to us in all the 
sidereal heavens ? If quality rather than bulk is 
to be our criterion, then the smallest speck of life 
may have more significance than a world of lifeless 
matter. It was customary not long ago to speak of 
the structureless cell as the characteristic of living 
matter. All living animals, it was found, could be 
traced back to a single cell, and from this cell by 
repeated division all the component cells are derived. 
It was also found that certain animals remain single 
cells all their lives, and others became multicellular, 
and this evidently is one of the most important dis- 
tinctions in zoology. It was thought that it was 
easier to bring zoological phenomena under the 
general conception of evolution if a beginning was 
made from the simplicity of a structureless cell, and 
by successive differentiations and integrations follow 
its growth until it arrived at the adult stage. But a 
change has come over the spirit of that dream. The 
structureless cell has vanished, and recent investiga- 
tion reveals innumerable complexities even within 
the single-celled animal. 

Our present interest in the cell theory is not to 
describe it, even in the most general terms, but to 
take that which lies at the very beginning of life, 
the single cell, and to see what a problem it is to 
think it. We may take from a master in this depart- 
ment of science the following : "It would appear 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 57 

from these more recent researches, of which time 
has only permitted me to give a brief and most 
imperfect summary, that the cell theory, great and 
important as it is most undoubtedly, is rather the 
commencement of a great movement, a fresh 
starting-point from which to begin investigations 
anew, than a complete scheme, or final explanation ; 
and the one great lesson for us to learn is that pro- 
cesses of apparently the simplest kind are really of an 
extremely complicated nature, and will well repay the 
most minute and attentive study; for a right under- 
standing of the changes that occur during the act 
of division of an ordinary epithelial cell, and of the 
causes determining those changes, would throw most 
welcome light on the more complicated processes ac- 
companying the ripening and fertilization of the ^gg^ 
which microscopists of all nationalities are at present 
studying with such intense earnestness." (** Biological 
Lectures," by Arthur Milnes Marshall, pp. 190-1.) 
Thus if we look at the simple cell as it is in itself 
at the earliest moment, we see a most complicated 
structure, and the structure is held together in a 
unity. When we have regard to its life history and 
to the changes through which it passes in the course 
of its growth, — and all these changes have also to 
be regarded as a unity, — then we would do well to 
revise our conception of a unity and its possibilities. 
These qualities, relations, processes, are there as 
one, and it would be well for us to recognize them 



58 THEISM 

as one. If our thinking is to have a relation to 
reality, we must not substitute a mere aspect of the 
whole for the complicated process which actually 
goes on. The mere word "cell" must not take the 
place of the fact, nor ought we to break up the fact 
into a number of separate processes, select one of 
these as cause, and make the other results of that 
one we perhaps selected in a somewhat arbitrary 
way ; for the cell is there with so many relations, 
qualities, properties, all belonging together, and form- 
ing a real unity. We shall find as we proceed that 
we are under the necessity of enlarging our concep- 
tions of a unity, and we shall be under the necessity 
of thinking, or trying to think, of the many in the 
light of one. That is actually what nature is doing, 
and we must remind ourselves of the fact, if we are 
to understand nature. Thus we dwell on the sim- 
plest form of life, and speak of it even to weariness, 
just to make ourselves realize how great is the 
problem that it represents to our thought. 

If we have been able to think a single cell in 
its isolation, its simplicity, and complexity, we must 
remember that we have done so by a process of 
abstraction. We neglected everything, and fixed our 
attention on the single cell. That is to say, we neg- 
lected its relation to the environment, the conditions 
of the world which made its existence possible as a 
living cell, the past history of time and its changes, 
and before our thinking could represent the reality 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 59 

these relations should be restored. But things are 
so in their reality, they are placed so in time and 
space, and are so related to all else that the history 
of a single cell implies the former history of the uni- 
verse. We toil after this in vain, but even the dis- 
tant glimpses we obtain of reality suggest that there 
is a thinker whose intellectual processes are adequate 
to the perfect understanding of the universe as it is, 
and as it works. 

Looking at the universe from the point of view we 
have now attained, we see it is a unity which has life 
in it. We see also that, while we may think of the 
cell in abstraction, we are immediately reminded that 
the abstraction is ours. The life of the cell is in 
relation to the whole, and is one phase of the life that 
is in existence. And the world as a whole is some- 
thing more than a system of mechanical forces, it 
has in it the principle of life. As our argument 
unfolds itself we shall see how much is implied in this 
great fact. We shall find in connection with life as 
it unfolds itself within the world, there are many new 
qualities brought within our view, which will help us 
to know something of the nature of the living power 
which, so far, we have already come to know. We 
have seen that the world is both organic and inor- 
ganic, and that these are one world, not tied together 
merely as cause and effect, but standing in recipro- 
cal relation to one another. The advent of life is an 
unveiling of the power that is at work in the world, 



6o THEISM 

and if in its simplest form life presents so grave a 
problem to our intelligence, what will the fulness of 
life present to our view ? We may not answer that 
question at this stage, but we may again lay stress 
on the fact that the advent of life has made known 
to us a new world, and a world that has brought with 
it its own method and action, and calls on us to meet 
it with a widening of our methods and actions if 
our intelligence is to keep pace with the working of 
the world. 

The one cell which remains a single cell through 
its life history has already presented us with prob- 
lems sufficiently hard and perplexing. What shall 
we then say of the advance from unicellular to multi- 
cellular being, which has been called one of the most 
important and significant steps taken by living being } 
The single cell which, be its origin what it may, 
proceeds on its course, passes beyond the stage of 
selfhood, and becomes a being of many cells. By 
modifications of itself, by splitting up into many cells, 
it grows ever more and more complex. It sets par- 
ticular cells to specific work. It differentiates the 
structure so as to make each structure fit for certain 
functions. Some become bone cells, some muscles ; 
some assume one form, some another, for the division 
is endless. I do not enumerate them, as they are 
accessible to every one, and my purpose is not to set 
forth the details, but to look at them in the light 
they cast on our thesis. As we pass from the being 



I 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 6 1 

of one cell to the being formed of many cells, differ- 
entiated and integrated to meet a larger purpose, we 
pass from the thought of a unity of comparatively 
simple functions to one of a very great complexity. 
It is as if we passed from the study of a single indi- 
vidual to the study of a community made up of many 
individuals. All the individuals are of the same kind, 
and arise in the same way from modifications of the 
original cell, but they become most diverse in kind, 
and perform functions of the most unUke order. 
While each one of the number becomes what it is, 
and sets itself to its own individual work, it lives and 
acts in harmony with all the others, and in subor- 
dination to the whole organism. There is no com- 
munity so well-ordered, so law-abiding, as is the 
community of cells which makes up the substance of 
a healthy organism. 

As we follow on in our thought the history of the 
organism, we see other facts quite as striking. It is 
not merely a community of cells working together 
that we see, it is a community the individual mem- 
bers of which are ever changing. The cells, or the 
matter of which they are composed, pass and a new 
set takes their place. The organism is ever prepar- 
ing, out of matter which it assimilates, the new cells 
which take the place of the old whose energy has 
been expended in doing the work of the organism, 
and the new cells seem to serve themselves heirs to 
the experience of the old, and the work goes on. 



62 THEISM 

The process of training seems to be very speedily 
accomplished, for in this institution there seem to 
be no dull or self-willed pupils. 

Not only has the organism the property of making 
alien matter a part of itself, and of making it serve 
the purposes of the organism, but there are even 
more surprising transformations still. Hitherto we 
have looked at the organism as a unity that maintains 
itself, sustains itself, and holds itself together during 
the time of its life history. We must look at it from 
another side. For we find that it has established 
certain fixed ways of communication with the envi- 
ronment, and these ways are made by a specializa- 
tion of its own substance. One of these ways was 
implied in what was said when we spoke of its power 
of taking in alien matter and transforming it to its 
own uses. There are ways of which we have not 
yet spoken which enhance our conception of the vast 
complexity of an organism. It lays hold of the rays 
of light and transforms the undulations of the ether 
into a subjective state which we call vision. It seizes 
the vibrations of the atmosphere, and they, also, take 
a subjective form, and sound becomes hearing. It 
recognizes tastes, smells, resistance, and these exter- 
nal movements are turned into something altogether 
different, and yet related to the qualities of the envi- 
ronment so that these subjective states are a guide 
to the action which the organism should take for its 
own maintenance. Still further these inner states 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 63 

of the organism, related to states of the environment, 
give rise to something which seems to have no cor- 
respondence to anything outside of the organism. 
Sensations which are related to particular states of 
certain definite organs can be understood by refer- 
ence to a definite organ of sense. But there is feel- 
ing which seems to need no definite organ for its 
existence ; it is neither sight, taste, touch, smell, nor 
hearing, it is localized nowhere ; as Sir William Ham- 
ilton said, it is subjectively subjective. 

Without entering into the psychology of feeling 
here, — confessedly the most difficult question in psy- 
chology, — it is sufficient for me at present to call 
attention to the fact that feeling seems to be the 
accompaniment of life, if not universally, at least of 
life which has attained a certain measure of organiza- 
tion. We have therefore to add to our view of or- 
ganization this subjective side in order to have a view 
of the manifoldness of this unity. It cannot be un- 
derstood ; it cannot, even, be stated, without a refer- 
ence to purpose. For the biologist always speaks of 
the organism as adapted to the end of living, as sur- 
viving in the struggle for existence, and in so doing 
he has given it a meaning other than that which be- 
longs to a series of physical processes. Such tele- 
ological references imply feeling, and effort, and 
impulse as the result of feeling. It may be that the 
explanation of the maintenance and striving of the 
organism does not admit of explanation without a 



64 THEISM 

reference to the subjective state of feeling, which is 
the source of all its effort. At all events there must 
be a centre to which all the states of the organism 
must be referred, and from which all its actions go 
forth. 

We have come thus far under the guidance of 
science. We see an organism at work, we see it 
making use of the environment for its own purpose, 
we see it holding together the various elements of 
matter of which materially it is composed, keeping 
them under its control while they are in its service, 
and as we turn to the inward condition of the or- 
ganism itself, we see a new, subjective world of sensa- 
tion and feeling unlike anything which we found in 
the world of matter or even in the lower forms of life. 
At all events if feeling is in the lower forms of life it 
is so feebly manifested that we are unable to recognize 
it. So we come to the conclusion that this is a uni- 
verse in which there is not only power, intelligence, 
life, but we are able to recognize that there is feeling 
in the universe. Again, we must widen our concep- 
tion of reality, and call on thought for a greater effort 
than before, if our thought is to grasp reality. As 
yet we may not be able to interpret rightly the phe- 
nomena of power, intelligence, life, or feeling which 
have met our view as we ascended the stream of a 
developing universe. We may need a principle of 
interpretation which has not yet been manifested, 
but at all events we see so far the facts which need 



INORGANIC WORLD A PREPARATION FOR LIFE 65 

explanation. We may not understand feeling till 
we see it as it exists in a self-conscious being, or any 
principle of the lower world until we see it in its 
highest relations. The source of explanation and the 
principle of explanation may not lie in the beginnings 
of things, but in the end. However that may be, let 
us recognize what has been found by us up to this 
point, and follow on to the larger issues yet to come. 



Ill 



LIFE: ITS GENESIS, GROWTH, AND 
MEANING 

To enable us to realize the complexity of an organ- 
ism, we have only to recall the fact that naturalists 
are constrained not only to speak of the whole system 
of a living being, but also of a number of systems 
within that system. They speak of the alimentary, 
the circulatory, the nervous, the motor, the sensitive, 
and the reproductive systems. Each of these is suffi- 
ciently definite to demand a separate treatment. Each, 
also, has a distinctive character, and as set forth in 
the text-books one is apt to forget its relation to 
the other systems with which it is coordinated in the 
unity of the organism. At the conclusion of the 
section on the structure of living things Messrs. 
Sedgwick and Wilson say : " Up to this point we 
have considered Uving organisms from an anatomical 
and analytical standpoint, and have observed their 
natural subdivisions into organs, tissues, and cells. 
We have now only to remark that these parts are 
mutually interdependent, and that the organism as a 
whole is greater than any of its parts. Precisely as 
a chronometer is superior to an aggregate of wheels 

66 



LIFE 67 

and springs, so a living organism is superior in the 
solidarity of its parts to a mere aggregate of organs, 
tissues, and cells." (Sedgwick and Wilson's " Intro- 
duction to General Biology," 2d edition, p. 19.) 
Again : " The process of cell division does not in this 
case go so far as complete cell separation, and the 
cells do not acquire a complete individuality. They 
do, it is true, acquire a certain independence of struc- 
ture and function ; and their individual characteristics 
may even depart widely from those of neighbouring 
cells. Nevertheless they remain closely united by 
either material or physiological bonds to form one 
body. The body is not, however, to be regarded as 
merely an assemblage of independent, individual cells. 
The Body is the Individual; its more or less per- 
fect division into cells is only a basis for the physio- 
logical division of labour, of which cell differentiation 
is the outward expression." (p. 156.) 

In this singularly able and instructive book we 
find stress laid on the unity of the organism, and 
those who study biology from a wider view than the 
biological find themselves greatly helped by the dis- 
tinguished authors. At all events my own debt of 
gratitude to them is great. I needed help to think 
the organism, and help was sought by me from all 
sources, and I was not able to see the manifold re- 
flected into unity till I read the book to which I refer. 
They enabled me to see that the body is the individ- 
ual, and the unity of the body is not to be lost sight 



6S THEISM 

of in the multiplicity of details. It is not explained 
by the cooperation of the parts, rather it is the ex- 
planation of them. The meaning of a unity is thus 
growing on our hands, and the end is not yet ; it will 
grow to larger issues still. Meanwhile we look at it 
once more, and we see not merely a series of cells 
in constant movement and change, but we see system 
within system, or system beside system, all working 
together in harmonious order, and all the systems 
have a meaning only in relation to the system of the 
whole of which they form a part, and which is more 
than the sum of them all. The adequate way of 
treating the organism would be to think it together, 
even as, in fact, it is held together in actual existence. 
This may be too great a task for our power of think- 
ing, but it is a task which has been done. A thought, 
an idea, is in the organism, for the organism is there, 
exists in its manifoldness and unity, as an actual fact 
in this world of space and time. If we cannot grasp 
it in its greatness, at least let us acknowledge it as 
a goal to our thought, and seek to grasp it at least 
in outline. 

One does not find much help from the authorities 
on biology in the attempt to think the organism in 
its unity, nor much practical recognition of the unity 
of the organism. Rather we find a constant attempt 
to evade the difficulty of the problem and a tendency 
to substitute something more easily grasped. Huxley 
calls the body "an aggregation of quasi-indepen- 



LIFE 69 

dent cells," and Virchow says "the organism is 
not a unity, but is a company or rather a society." 
And Professor Geddes says, " For actual biological 
purposes the life of an organism is the sum of 
its functions, internal and external." (" Chambers's 
Encyclopaedia," art. Biology.) The problem of life 
is attacked now from the side of the cell, now from 
the tissue, and again from the protoplasm, and the 
point of view varies according to the aspect in which 
it is viewed. But from biologists generally we get 
but little help in our desire to study the individual 
as a unity. Every theory seems to move by the 
disintegration of the individual into self -efficient and 
unrelated parts. Sometimes these are physical or 
chemical elements, sometimes a company of cells, and 
sometimes physiological units. So much stress is 
laid on the similarity, and on the independence of 
cells, that the individual disappears. The true indi- 
viduals appear to be the cells, and the organism 
seems to be explained as a result of the behaviour 
of the cells as they grow, reproduce, and differ- 
entiate themselves. But the relation of whole and 
part cannot be studied by the microscope. If we 
are to get at the secret of the organism, we must 
study it in relation to the organism, and look at all 
the qualities as properties of the organism. " Of this 
organization itself as such — that is, of the mechanical 
apparatus it presents to us — the microscope tells us 
nothing whatever. The microscope only enables us 



70 THEISM 

to see a single cell, a single germinal particle in con- 
nection with more or less of its own formed material 
— a single coral, so to speak, and the polype that 
died into it ; it tells us nothing whatever of the vast 
machine which these polypes have all unconsciously 
built up with their coral. The mighty and complex 
frame of man is, after all, despite its innumerable 
parts, a unity ; all these parts but go toward that unity, 
are sublated into it. Now, what of all that does mi- 
croscopic observation tell us .'* Why, simply nothing. 
Myriads of miserable Egyptians carried stones to 
the pyramid, but no microscopic watching of any of 
these, stone and all, would ever explain the pyramid 
itself — its many to a one." (Hutchison Stirling, 
"As Regards Protoplasm," p. 75.) 

The substitution of the idea of a community for 
that of a unity seems to give an easier problem for 
solution, because a community is thought of as a 
loose and apparently fortuitous concourse of individ- 
uals, each independent of all the others. Whether 
society can be regarded as a crowd and not as a real 
unity is another question on which something may be 
said later, but from a certain standpoint society may 
be looked at as a crowd of independent or quasi- 
independent units. If this is the sense attached to 
the term, it is a term quite inadequate to express the 
unity of the body, and can only mislead. For biology 
it may suffice to say that the life of an organism is 
the sum of its functions, but for real thought the 



LIFE 71 

organism is more than a sum. It is something that 
holds together the whole ongoing of the organic quali- 
ties, functions, etc., and makes them work together 
for the aims and purposes of the organism. Every 
cell, while it is within the body, is in the service of 
the organism, and its modifications, its changes, its 
food, its waste, its very form, are determined for it by 
the whole. It is maintained only while it is within 
the body, when removed from the organism it perishes 
and passes to a lower chemical condition. 

Thus, also, we must think of the variations to which 
the organism is subject. They cannot be arbitrary 
nor can they be unlimited. For the organism is so 
tied together that a variation in one part gives rise to 
a number of correlated variations so great as to be 
beyond reckoning. The supposition of innumerable 
variations is a hypothesis that has bulked largely in 
the theory of evolution, and it seems to me to be 
greatly exaggerated. Confining our view to a single 
organism, it certainly does not admit of indefinite 
variation. It is not my intention, however, to criticise 
the adequacy of the multitudinous machinery which 
has been invented to make the theory of evolution 
intelligible. For from my point of view, at present, 
I have no interest in such criticism. I am willing to 
accept the fact of evolution, though I do not think 
the factors of evolution have been discovered as yet. 
We know that life appeared on the earth in a simple 
form, that it proceeded in forms which grew from 



72 THEISM 

more to more, that there is a gradation and a se- 
quence in the appearance of life on the earth, and 
that the latest form of life is the highest form that 
has yet appeared. So far agreement reigns; further 
agreement may be attained if we say that each lower 
form of life precedes the higher in point of time, in 
order of organization, and, perhaps, also in causal 
preparation. It may be that each form was evolved 
from a lower by successive modifications, and that all 
forms of life are organically and causally connected 
with the first forms which appeared. Species may 
be not fixed and unchangeable, but subject to a law 
of progress and change. If this be so, all the refer- 
ence it has to my argument is to make me widen my 
view of unity, and to call on me to grasp, if I can, a 
larger manifold in a single unity. It has been diffi- 
cult enough to grasp the conception of a single 
organism, so complex have we found it to be. We 
have found also that we were ever trying to substitute 
an abstract conception for the concrete reality. To 
what straits shall we be driven when we find ourselves 
in the presence of a vast reality persisting through 
the ages, growing, changing, ever in adaptation with 
its environment, yet ever fixing itself in relatively 
permanent forms, and always in active movement. 
We might predict that we shall have a larger crop of 
abstractions than before, since the phenomena are 
more complex. And so we have. Heredity, varia- 
tion, the struggle for existence, natural selection, the 



LIFE 73 

survival of the fittest, and a number of other phrases 
appear, some of which have passed into common speech. 

As I said, I am not concerned to criticise these 
terms and what they stand for, except so far as they 
have become the symbols of a mechanical evolution ; 
and thus tend to make mind derivative and second- 
ary. Some of them seem to be without meaning and 
some seem to be mere expressions. Take the sur- 
vival of the fittest, and, looking at the world of life 
as it is to-day, ask what it means. It really tells 
us nothing, affords us no criterion of life, gives no 
intimation of progress. Everything that survives is 
the fittest whether it be a unicellular being, or multi- 
cellular; whether it be a degraded form, or a form 
that is in the exercise of all its functions, with all 
its structures perfect. It adds nothing to our know- 
ledge, nor does it give us any insight into the mean- 
ing of the changes that life has passed through. 

Natural selection seems to be a name for a vast 
complexity of conditions to which life is subject, and 
now one and again another is to the front as it is 
most needed. It has sometimes to become more 
particular, and becomes cell selection, physiological 
selection, sexual selection, germinal selection, as the 
more general formula becomes clearly inadequate 
for its purpose. It is applied, too, for the purpose 
of explaining the advance of life into higher forms. 
It cannot, at the same time, and with the same 
machinery, explain the persistency of the lower and 



74 THEISM 

the advent of the higher forms of life. If there is a 
struggle for existence among the lower forms of life, 
how is it that they remained the same for all time, 
made no change, and have had no variation so far 
as we know? If there is no struggle for existence 
among the lower organisms, there is an utter absence 
of the motive for change which underlies the Dar- 
winian hypothesis. It does not seem possible to 
find occasion for any advance from the simplicity 
of the immortal single celled beings to the danger- 
ous struggle for existence that, according to Darwin, 
awaits the higher organisms. The single cell has 
every advantage; it is first in the field, and it per- 
sists still. Why did some cells become multicellu- 
lar .^^ The Darwinian machinery is silent. 

Many other things might be said of the inade- 
quacy of natural selection. Indeed, many things 
have been said, and these have, for the most part, 
been ignored by the thorough-going advocates of 
natural selection. Though it has been clearly 
shown that natural selection cannot originate any- 
thing, yet men continue to speak as if natural selec- 
tion could do this, that, and the other thing. Though 
it appears that its function is negative, the killing 
off of the unfit, yet positive functions of the most 
productive sort are ascribed to it. At one time, it is 
said, natural selection does produce species, and with 
the next breath it has to wait for the appearance of 
a variation on which it may work. 



LIFE 75 

Some contend that natural selection is sufficient 
to account for the origin of species ; some, that it 
has a place along with other factors in the develop- 
ment of new forms of life; and some say that its 
function is mainly negative, inhibiting certain 
departures from the type, and so it is a some- 
thing that makes for the stability of species. But 
underlying all the variations of the meaning of 
natural selection is the conception of the struggle 
for existence and fortuitous variation in all direc- 
tions. It is a grewsome picture that they present 
to us under the name "the struggle for existence," 
and the demand for variation is so extensive that to 
comply with it would land us in a world governed 
only by chance. To speak first of the struggle for 
existence, and to speak with all brevity. It is most 
extensive. It is a struggle between organism and 
organism, between species and species, and between 
species and environment in all cases. The parts of 
a creature are also represented as struggling with one 
another, one set of cells struggling against another 
set, and food for brain cells may mean lack of food 
for motor cells, and so on. The idea of struggle has 
been followed out in all directions, and there is no 
possible relation between one part of the body and 
another part, between one organism and another, 
between one species and another, but may easily 
be presented as a struggle. Struggle thus presented 
tends to become an empty form. 



76 THEISM 

Of course it is quite easy to present things so, 
and it is as useless as it is easy. But the presenta- 
tion of the struggle is possible because we first take 
out of their relations the beings which struggle, 
look at them abstractly, and then seek to conceive 
of them as struggling to get back into relations. 
But we do not find any being subsisting out of rela- 
tion to other beings. Relations and conditions may 
be set forth as if they were a struggle, and, indeed, 
a goodly number of the pictures of struggle are 
just the relations in which the creature stands, and 
the conditions of its existence without which it could 
not be. Neglecting the other aspects of struggle, 
let us look at the main picture. It has never yet 
been shown that a species is more numerous than 
can be supported by its means of subsistence, and 
in fact it does not seem ever to approach the limit 
of its subsistence. Many imaginary features have 
been introduced into the picture. The life of a 
species is looked at as something that strives to 
expand in all directions, and this tendency to expan- 
sion tends to bring it into collision with other beings, 
and being brought into collision they strive for 
advantage, and the one that obtains the mastery 
obtains the prize. Every organism is thus on the 
watch for any modification which may give it the 
mastery, and having found the modification it per- 
petuates it. Such is the picture presented to us. 

Of the struggle we shall only say that it is universal. 



LIFE yy 

at least it is represented as if it were. But general 
laws do not account for particular effects. What is 
needed is a knowledge of the specific causes which 
here or there place a check on the expansion of 
a species, and this is what is never forthcoming. 
There must be limits to the increase of a species, 
and Mr. Darwin in this relation says, "If asked 
how this is, one immediately replies that it is deter- 
mined by some slight difference in climate, food, or 
the number of the enemies ; yet how rarely, if ever, 
we can point out the precise cause or manner of the 
check." It reminds us of the favourite argument 
of another evolutionist who when he is confronted 
with a change which he cannot particularly explain, 
says what has happened must have happened, other- 
wise force would have ceased to persist. Such an 
explanation is purely formal. If the struggle were a 
fact of natural history, it would be quite easy to point 
to the struggle, and to indicate in detail the precise 
cause or manner of the check. 

Apart from its environment and the conditions of 
its existence a Hving creature is for us inconceivable. 
By turning the creature into an abstraction it is pos- 
sible to represent it as struggling with its environ- 
ment, but the relation to its environment is simply 
that which makes its life possible. Similarly we may 
make every relation in which it stands to other beings, 
and every quality it has, a symbol of the struggle. 
But these relations, conditions, qualities, may be pre- 



^S THEISM 

sented, and more truly, from another point of view. 
All other existence is needed in order that this par- 
ticular being should exist in this time, place, and in 
this particular form. For this end the sun must 
shine, the rain must fall, seedtime and harvest, sum- 
mer and winter, must come and go, the tides ebb and 
flow, the grass grow, and other living things labour 
that this form of being may have a life of its own. 
So easy is it to turn the struggle inside out, and turn 
it into a set of enabling conditions without which this 
form of life would not be possible. 

As to the demand for indefinite variation which is 
necessary to provide the material on which natural 
selection may work, we need not say much about it. 
The time of such indefinite variation, if it ever was, 
is long past. Living matter has been sorted into 
definite lots, and species has been pretty well fixed 
for a long time. The limits of the variation are very 
definite as far as present species are concerned. 
Whales do not vary in the direction of feathers, nor 
do birds tend to vary in the direction of fins. Varia- 
tion might have been somewhat indefinite long ago, 
but species vary now only within very definite limits. 
In fact, variable life is in the same condition as the pre- 
chemical matter of Sir Norman Lockyer — it has all 
been worked up into definite forms. Indeed, if it 
were not for the desire to avoid the introduction of 
anything like guidance into the conception of the 
causes which account for the phenomena of life, it 



LIFE 79 

would have been a more likely account of the facts 
to suppose that the variations were definite and not 
indefinite. That something like guidance is needed 
is very evident, and from one point of view natural 
selection gives that guidance; while, on the other 
hand, natural selection is itself nothing but a set of 
conditions which may be dealt with quantitatively 
and mechanically. It keeps the word of promise to 
the ear, by showing us a principle at work which 
seems to lead life on to greater and greater issues ; it 
breaks the word of promise by showing us that any 
kind of guidance is altogether absent. Professor 
Poulton, in criticism of the hypothesis of physiological 
selection of the late Mr. Romanes, says (he is speaking 
of fertility and infertility) : " Mutual infertility is due 
to a single and uniform constitution rigidly kept within 
the narrowest limits, while a minute change of consti- 
tution in any direction means infertility. Mutual infer- 
tility is, in fact, but the single external indication of 
numberless changes of constitution. The necessary 
precision of adjustment of the male to the female germ- 
substance is only kept up in the species by unremitting 
selection, and there is no cause for surprise that it 
should cease when selection is no longer forthcoming 
for its support." Again, " Mutual fertility depends 
upon the exact relationship of two extraordinarily 
complex bodies, the germ cells of male and female ; it 
depends upon a reciprocal adjustment of almost infi- 
nite precision." (" Nature," December 8, 1898, p. 122.) 



80 THEISM 

This is quoted in order that we may have a con- 
ception of the marvellous things done by natural 
selection. Adjustments are kept up by unremitting 
selection, and under that selection a "reciprocal 
adjustment of almost infinite precision " is accom- 
plished. Yet there is no sufficient agency set forth 
by which this work of infinite precision can be done. 
When we ask what it is, we are presented with a 
bewildering variety of conditions, some of which are 
highly problematical, and most of them vague and 
indefinite. At one time the struggle is set forth as 
universal, and again it is intermittent, for Professor 
Poulton speaks of a state in which " selection is no 
longer forthcoming." An agency so vague, and so 
indefinite, which at one time acts, and at another 
time ceases to act, which is now set forth as a con- 
servative agent, and again as the most active power 
in revolution, ought at any rate to be sufficiently 
described. And this, we submit, has never been 
done. 

There is, indeed, a selective power in life, there is 
a power at work of almost infinite precision, there 
is unremitting selection in the maintenance of what 
is gained so that there may not be retrogression, and 
also unremitting attention to the movement of life 
in relation to wider unities and large meanings ; 
but the question is, can you rationally predicate such 
qualities of a series or congeries of varying agencies 
hypostatized under the name of natural selection } 



LIFE 8 I 

At no time in the history of thought, or in the history 
of science, has there been so much attention given to 
the magnificent adjustments of life and the infinite 
precision of every one of them. We may gratefully 
acknowledge our indebtedness to the advocates of 
organic evolution for the wonderful light they have 
cast on the unity of life and on its endless diversity. 
We gratefully acknowledge that they have enabled 
us to see a much more wonderful variety of adjust- 
ments than the older teleology ever dreamed of. 
They have constrained the older teleologists to admit 
that the notion of an external artificer is no longer 
adequate. We cannot now think of an organism 
being put together as a watch is. On the other 
hand, they must also admit the consequences of their 
own work. When they call attention to the infinite 
precision of the adjustments of life, and dwell on the 
unremitting selection they find at work, they cannot 
dwell to any purpose, as in other relations they do, 
on the wastefulness of life, nor compare the steps 
that led to an adjustment, to the process of firing 
a thousand shots at an object, and hitting it only 
once. Infinite precision in one point is scarcely 
consistent with such bad shooting. 

It does not yet appear what mode of speech they 
ought to depart from. From one point of view such 
aimless shooting is essential to their theory. For 
on their view such profusion of experiments is 
necessary to afford them an occasion for hitting on 

G 



82 THEISM 

that happy accident which has a chance of per- 
manence. Nature tries and tries again, and after 
innumerable failures, hits on a success, and then she 
buries her failures and goes on her way rejoicing. 
We prefer to follow them as they point out the 
infinite precision of these adjustments ; we decline 
to believe them when they say that these have 
emerged as the outcome of an infinite series of 
trials and errors. If these adjustments are there 
now in almost infinite precision, we naturally think 
that the steps which led up to them were not lack- 
ing in precision. If the outcome of the process is 
full of such wonderful interrelations as are de- 
scribed in every book that treats of evolution, surely 
we may infer that the processes are also intelligible. 
At all events we are justified in withholding our 
assent to the production of a world of life, out of 
processes in which no intelligible process can be 
discovered, at least until we have overwhelming 
evidence for such a conception. Evidence is not 
likely to be forthcoming, for nature has buried her 
failures. Meanwhile, we follow the guidance of 
those who unfold for us the history of life, and 
we leave on one side all the machinery which they 
have manufactured for the purpose of explaining 
the progress of life and the origin of species. 
These two things are by no means organically 
united, and that hypothesis is not the only, or the 
best one, for the explanation of the facts. 



LIFE 83 

Historically, then, life appears as a simple cell, 
and in that form it is recognized in those geological 
strata in which it first appeared. Life goes on 
and appears in more and more complex forms. 
It is not necessary to enumerate these. Nor is 
it needful to enumerate the systems of classifica- 
tion, nor the species which have appeared in the 
history of the earth. Soon living things appear in 
various forms which have a relative permanence, 
for some of the earlier forms are here at this hour. 
The persistence of the earlier species goes on side 
by side with the introduction of newer and more 
highly evolved species, until the tree of life puts 
forth its greatest and most evolved fruit. There is 
permanence, there is gradation, there is progress ; 
and all these are combined in the view of life 
disclosed to us by evolution. As to the kinds of 
living beings recognized by zoologists, we do not 
find agreement among them. " They all recognize," 
says Professor MacBride, " a certain number of 
phyla. Each phylum includes a group of animals 
about whose relation to one another no one enter- 
tains a doubt. Each zoologist, however, has his 
own idea as to the relationship which the various 
phyla bear to one another." (Professor MacBride 
in Spencer's "Biology," Vol. I., p. 386, edition 1898.) 
He enumerates seventeen phyla from the protozoa 
up to the chordata, which last includes the verte- 
brata. 



84 THEISM 

As we follow the description of the various phyla 
from the protozoa, both with regard to their peculiar 
characteristics, and with regard to the order of 
their appearance in time, we are struck with the 
contrast between the clear, sharp discrimination of 
each from each, and with the definiteness of this 
work ; and on the other hand, with the vague 
speculative account of the manner of the origin of 
each phylum, and the causes of their modifications 
into the form they now have. In the one case 
we have to do with the intelUgible marks and con- 
ditions of a definite existence, distinguished from all 
other indefinite modes of Uf e ; in the other with the 
attempt to derive conditioned existence from a con- 
geries of accidents, which makes any ordered out- 
come unintelligible. One cannot make such a 
transition. From intelligible results one can argue 
only to inteUigible causes and processes. But this 
is not the only sphere in which men strive to make 
non-intelligence do the work of intelligence. 

Each order of being is presented to us as being 
with a determinate kind of existence, conditioned 
in time and place, definitely related to other beings 
of the same kind and of other kinds. There is 
nothing uncertain or indeterminate in their quali- 
ties, nor anything to indicate that they are the prod- 
uct of accidental combinations. It would require 
an extension of the calculus of probabilities, hope- 
lessly beyond our reach, to calculate the chances 



LIFE 85 

of a transition from a sphere of accidental com- 
binations to a sphere of definite determinate exist- 
ence. That calculation has not been made, nor 
can it be made. 

As we follow the stream of life, we pass from 
the relatively simple to the complex, and the greater 
the complexity the greater becomes the depen- 
dence of the parts each on each. Certain forms of 
life seem to have in every part the power to re- 
produce the whole, but the higher organisms have 
lost that power. A highly organized nation knows 
when it is beaten, a nation loosely held together 
may keep up a partisan warfare for years. Unicel- 
lular life is almost indestructible, organized life 
may be extinguished by a breath. Still, we do not 
obtain an adequate conception of life until we 
look at its highest development, and obtain some 
idea of how it came to be. With this thought 
there opens out before us a great and luminous 
conception which we may regard apart from the 
external machinery of evolution. The conception is 
that the history of each individual is the history of 
life up to the point at which the form of life to 
which it belonged appeared. There is sufficient 
truth in this conception for us to use it, though it 
has been stated far too absolutely. Recapitulation 
is a fact so far at least as regards all creatures that 
have an embryonic hfe. Whether it is true of 
larvae is questioned. No doubt there are some 



86 THEISM 

omissions, and many steps seem to be shortened, 
and yet there is enough to enable us to say that 
life seems to remember the steps by which it 
climbed upwards to higher and higher ends. If 
the recapitulation has nothing accidental or tenta- 
tive about it, have we any good reason to think 
that the steps recapitulated were accidental? 

In the recapitulation, too, the organism outruns the 
original method. It sets to work prophetically, and 
forms organs to fit a medium with which it is to be 
in relation only in the future. It forms eyes for the 
light that they have never seen, and ears adapted to 
the vibrations which they have never heard. This 
fact, which Mr. Spencer calls preadaptation, reveals 
to us a striking peculiarity of life, however we may 
explain it. We referred to eyes and ears as instances 
of preadaptation, but the whole organism of all crea- 
tures that pass through an embryonic stage of life is 
formed and adapted to a medium in which they do 
not live at the time of their formation. There can 
be no thought of chance combinations producing so 
wonderful a relation. 

Life, then, whether we look at it as manifested in 
the individual, or as manifested in all living things, 
presents us with a vast and wonderful system of 
thought. It presents definite qualities as it appears 
in its simplest form ; it seems to proceed in orderly 
progression from stage to stage; and wherever we 
find it, it is in exact relation with preceding and sue- 



LIFE sy 

ceeding forms of life ; and in exact relation also, not 
with an abstract environment, but with surroundings 
as definite and conditioned as it is itself. Here is no 
abstract organism to be thrust into an abstract envi- 
ronment, to which it must respond by some variation 
which will enable the one to correspond to the other ; 
what we everywhere have is a real and definite cor- 
respondence, established as the very condition of the 
existence of the creature. There are changes in 
both, and larger correspondences arise as life be- 
comes wider and more definite. May we not postu- 
late in life this power to adapt itself to the changing 
conditions of its existence, and postulate also that 
this power acts in a regular and orderly fashion } 
Why should we postulate a blind thrusting out of 
life in all directions, and leave the result to accident } 
That is not the way of the life we see around us on 
all sides. We see economy, thrift, ends accomplished 
at the smallest cost of matter and energy ; and an ex- 
act and infinite precision in the adjustment of means 
to ends. If the life we see is so wise and provident, 
shall we suppose it to be ignorant and wasteful in 
those processes which we hardly know at all ? 

As my purpose is not to follow the growth of life 
as it has appeared in the history of time, but to learn 
what is the meaning of that history, I shall not enter 
into details. It has many riddles, and many myste- 
ries, yet we may safely say that, looking to the record 
of it, there have been method, advance, progress. 



88 THEISM 

It has grown, developed, and advanced as if it had 
been guided by a power, who foresaw the end from 
the beginning and took steps to accomplish that end. 
We may never be able to say definitely what were 
the ends of life, but we may say that there are ends. 
We may never know why life seems to lead up to a 
cul-de-sac as in the case of mollusca, insecta, arachni- 
dse, and Crustacea, and apparently in other branches 
of the tree of life. Taking the tree in Spencer's " Bi- 
ology," it looks as if life had set forth on an explor- 
ing voyage, and had come to a position from which 
there was no further advance. While advancing in 
part on the right and left, it also advanced on the 
central line, and through the ascending line of the 
vertebrata came at last to a form, in which it became 
conscious of itself and of its meaning. 

This is a difficulty to any theory of life, as much 
to the evolutionist as to any other. For the evolu- 
tionist is bound on his theory to find a use for every- 
thing and an advantage to the possessor of every 
quality which life has, even to the spots on a pea- 
cock's tail. It has also to explain why the changes 
and variation, which led from the simplest form of 
life up to insects, ceased at that point on that line, 
and went no further. The question may be put to 
me, and I shall answer — I do not know. There 
may be reasons which are unknown to me, which 
may never be known to me. Be that as it may, 
enough is known to me of the wisdom of that power 



LIFE 89 

made manifest in the relations of living beings to 
enable me to trust that wisdom is manifested here 
also. Darwin has shown us the toils of the earth- 
worm in the service of the higher life ; research may 
show us that these forms of life, which have stopped 
short at a certain stage of organization, as if no 
further advance could be made on that line, may be 
of indispensable service to those higher forms that 
reached their higher development on another line. 
Perhaps the work done by these could not be done 
by forms of life determined by another line of ascent. 
For the manifold forms of life seem to be a gigantic 
system of cooperation, in which each exists for all 
the others. Certainly there are many facts that seem 
to lead to that conclusion — facts set forth in a new 
and interesting form by Prince Kropotkin, Professor 
Geddes, and others, on which I cannot dwell here. 

Apart, then, from the machinery of evolution and 
the difficulties which it brings with it, we have learned 
to look at life as one. It has a continued history. 
The first form is bound up with the latest outcome of 
life. The highest form of life is the epitome of the 
whole history of life, and all life as at present consti- 
tuted is united together by many bonds, some visible, 
and some invisible. This great thought we owe to 
organic evolution and its expounders. It looks much 
more of a rational scheme than that which our fathers 
learned from their scientific teachers. They thought 
of a series of unrelated, special creations, each special 



90 THEISM 

creation being suddenly thrust into an environment. 
(See Milton's description.) Creatures are made not 
without their own cooperation, and they are made so 
as to make themselves. This, also, we have learned 
from evolution. Evolution has laid stress on the 
striving of life after greater fulness, on the stem 
grip of life on every advantage gained, and on the 
readiness of life to press on to larger issues. Inheri- 
tance cannot be merely received by it, the heir must 
be equal to the inheritance, or it will pass away. In- 
herited qualities are, in the most real sense, also 
acquired, while acquired qualities are transmitted, 
Weissmann notwithstanding. But it is not really of 
importance for us to advert to that controversy, 
which seems to be a somewhat idle one. For the 
main impulse to the denial of the transmission of 
acquired qualities arises from the attempt of Weiss- 
mann to substitute another unity for the unity of the 
organism. But we pass it by at present. 

Looking at life from the standpoint we have now 
attained, we see a web of the greatest complexity. 
We see growth, gradation, adaptation, preadaptation, 
organization, means adapted to ends, and larger ends, 
dimly arising before our view, as, under the prompt- 
ing of evolution, men are pressing on to explore the 
vistas which beckon them on. Without controversy 
the unveiling of the processes of life has given us a 
larger conception of the wisdom of the power at work 
in the phenomena of life. Something was learned of 



LIFE 91 

wisdom even when we looked at life from the external 
standpoint of Paley. It gave us a lofty conception 
of the skill of the artificer. For the machinery was 
so much more skilfully constructed than any machine 
made by man, that the wisdom of the human and the 
divine artificer could not be compared. Then there 
were machines that produced other machines, to 
speak of organisms as machines for a moment, and 
making better machines as time went on, so that the 
carpenter did not give us an unworthy conception of 
the matter so far as mere skill of adaptation and use 
were concerned. But even Paley felt that the car- 
penter theory was inadequate, and the use he made of 
the argument and illustration was to show that these 
skilful contrivances were not without an adequate 
cause. 

The effect of evolution has been simply to transfer 
the cause from a mere external influence working 
from without to an immanent rational principle. 
The skill of the carpenter is now within the living 
creatures, and they work onward and upwards to the 
issues now becoming manifest to the beholder. At 
all events the wisdom and the skill are there, account 
for them as we may. They are connected, too, with 
the actual working of life as that is manifested in the 
living beings we see in the world. At present it is 
too early to ask if the living power we see at work in 
the world of life is also a transcendent power, which 
means something for itself. As far as we have yet 



92 THEISM 

looked at the world and the phenomena presented to 
us by it, we have no data even for the consideration 
of such a question. For we see that a world of in- 
organic phenomena has become a world of life, and 
the story of the inorganic world could be rationally 
read as the story of a preparation for Hfe, and the 
story of life — its existence, growth, and progress — 
was a story of the interactions between life and its 
environment, so that we have not had cause, as yet, to 
raise the question of the ground of the world and the 
character of that ground, save in so far as it is inti- 
mated to us by the manifestations we have seen. We 
may obtain more light as we proceed ; meanwhile it 
is evident that there is power at work greater than 
we can measure, that there is wisdom of the highest 
kind at work, and that power is not a stranger to life. 
It is not an unknowable power, for it is a manifested 
power, and a power so far as it is manifested is known, 
or may be known. It may transcend in its greatness 
and excellence our capacity of knowledge, we may 
have to speak of it as unlimited, and may have to use 
all kinds of adjectives to negative any Umits to the 
positive excellence of it, but negative adjectives do 
not alter the positive character of the power. Un- 
limited power is power, and endless Ufe is life. It is 
one of the most curious freaks of metaphysics that 
a power manifested in the whole universe should be 
described as unknowable. Underlying such a con- 
ception must lurk a curious theory of substance and 



LIFE 93 

attributes, which can only regard attributes as a way 
of concealing the substance. Attributes reveal sub- 
stance, they are the qualities which define it, show 
its way of being and working, and enable it to be 
known. This way of speech is forced on us, for, if 
we could, we should never speak in that way. For 
the way of speaking supposes that we can separate 
being from its modes of manifestation ; we may speak 
of substance in that way, as speech is sometimes 
unreal, but substance without attributes is nothing, 
and is unthinkable. 

Beings who think at all cannot place at the basis 
of all things an unthinkable or postulate irrational- 
ity as the ground of an intelligible universe. The 
world does appear to exist in relations that can be 
thought, and the operations of it correspond to those 
which thought establishes among its objects. At all 
events, evolutionary science has shown us such rela- 
tions between the life of the present and the life of 
the past as to make the relation between them one 
that we can understand. If the advocates of evolution 
have postulated accidental causes, and done much to 
make the transition from the category of cause and 
effect to the category of means and end unthinkable, 
well, that is their misfortune, and may have arisen 
from inexact ways of thinking ; but apart from that 
they have been successful in showing us a world of 
life which is intelligible. We take their results, and 
leave their philosophy on one side. We are grate- 



94 THEISM 

ful to them for enabling us to see that the world of 
life is a world governed by rational methods, and 
thus they have enabled us to say that there is a 
rational living power at work in the world. That is 
the only conclusion we infer at this stage. 

As life unfolds itself, and as the possibilities of it 
come forth to view, other inferences may be drawn 
as to the character of the power at work in the uni- 
verse, but we may not push any argument beyond its 
due limits. Only this we must say, that for purposes 
of rational explanation the highest and not the lowest 
is the standard of reference. If we are to explain the 
process of evolution, we must have regard, not to the 
starting-point, but to the goal. It is true that a hy- 
pothesis, precisely the opposite of this, lies at the basis 
of the synthetic philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
and, also, at the basis of much current writing on 
evolutionary topics. This is the key to a great deal 
of their argumentation, and to their strenuous at- 
tempts to explain the higher in terms of the lower. 
One has sympathy with those who labour at an im- 
possible task. It is hard on one who has undertaken 
to explain evolution in terms of the distribution of 
matter and motion to arrive at a stage where matter 
fails, and then to be compelled to deal with super- 
organic evolution. Hard, also, to have to speak of 
subject and object, and of other conceptions which 
decline to be subjected to a process of distribution 
and redistribution of matter and motion. We can but 



LIFE 95 

express our sympathy, and pass on to the conviction 
that the source of explanation lies not where they are 
seeking it. What has appeared in the process of 
evolution was there in the source from which evolution 
flowed. And what has appeared is a revelation of the 
living energy from which all things proceeded. 

On this topic we quote from the Master of Balliol. 
"When, indeed, we turn back from the developed 
organism to the embryo, from the man to the child, 
we find that a study of the process of genesis casts 
no little Ught upon the nature of the being which is 
its result. The man becomes in a higher sense 
intelligible, when we trace him back to the child. 
But, primarily and in the first instance, it is the 
developed organism that explains the germ from 
which it grew, and without having seen the former 
we could have made nothing of the latter. No 
examination of the child could enable us to prophesy 
the man, if we had not previously had some expe- 
rience of mature manhood; still less would an ex- 
amination of the embryo reveal to us the distinct 
lineaments of the plant, or animal, or man. Nor 
would our insight be greatly helped by a knowledge 
of the environments in which the process of develop- 
ment was to take place. 

" It is the full growth and expansion of this mighty 
tree, under whose shadow the generations of men 
have rested, that enables us to understand its obscure 
beginnings, when it was the least of all seeds. De- 



96 THEISM 

velopment is not simply the recurrence of the same 
effects in similar circumstances, not simply the main- 
tenance of an identity under a variation determined 
by external conditions. Hence it is impossible from 
the phenomena of one stage of the life of a develop- 
ing being to derive laws which will adequately explain 
the whole course of its existence. The secret of the 
peculiar nature of such a being lies just in the way 
of regular transition in which, by constant interaction 
with external influences, it widens the compass of its 
life, unfolding continually new powers and capacities 
— powers and capacities latent in it from the first, 
but not capable of being foreseen with any definite- 
ness by one who had seen only the beginning. It 
follows that, in the first instance at least, we must 
read development backward and not forward, we 
must find the key to the meaning of the first stage in 
the last, though it is quite true that, afterwards, we 
are enabled to throw new light upon the nature of 
the last, to analyze and appreciate it in a new way, 
by carrying it back to the first. We may derive an 
illustration of this characteristic of development from 
the idea of development itself ; for the idea of de- 
velopment is one of the latest ideas whose meaning 
and value have been brought to light by the progress 
of man, and is itself the much wanted key to the 
history of that progress." ("The Evolution of Re- 
ligion," Vol. I., pp. 44-8.) 

To understand the processes of the world and the 



LIFE 97 

light they cast on the ground and source of it, we 
must take our stand on the highest outcome of the 
life that is in the world. True, our highest explana- 
tion will not be ultimate, for the end is not yet, and 
our interpretation is available only for the stage at 
which we have arrived. A further manifestation 
will arrive by and by; meanwhile our appreciation 
may be true and valuable, so far as it goes. 

H 



IV 

RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 

Following the line of development of life we 
come to a form which seems to sum up in itself all 
the characteristics of the lower forms, and to present 
to our view marks unknown before. At present we 
do not dwell on the line of descent, or of ascent 
from the first to the final form of living beings on 
the earth. We acknowledge that there are many- 
links of connection between man and other forms 
of life. That has been made plain enough to all. 
On the physical side man is an animal, perhaps the 
highest and most complicated of all animal forms, 
but yet with evident marks of his relationship to 
them. Leaving the doctrine of descent untouched, 
for an inadequate treatment of it would serve no 
good purpose, and an adequate treatment of it, even 
if I had the requisite knowledge, would far exceed 
my limits, I remark that a determination of this 
question is not important for the aim I have in view. 
All that is necessary from the point of view of the 
doctrine of descent is, that we admit that in all physi- 
cal respects man is closely related to other forms 

98 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 99 

of life. It is confessedly difficult to choose a form 
from which man may be said to have been descended. 
But physiologically and anatomically man is like all 
the higher animals. No doubt there are differences, 
but these are admitted even by those who advocate 
the doctrine of descent. We pass on, therefore, to 
another aspect of the subject. 

Nor do I spend, at this stage, any time on the 
views of Darwin and Romanes as to the relation 
of animal to human intelligence. Much might be 
said on this topic, and something may be said later. 
What I am concerned with here is not how man 
came to be, nor how physically he was evolved from 
lower forms of life, nor how his intelligence is re- 
lated to lower intelligences, but what can we discern 
man to be physically, mentally, morally, and reli- 
giously now that he is here. 

The first thing that we note about him is that he is 
differently related to his environment from any other 
living being. As far as mere organic equipment 
is concerned, man is one of the most helpless of 
animals. He is not so swift as some, nor so keen 
of sight as others ; his sense of smell, of sound, or of 
touch is imperfectly developed in comparison with 
the extraordinary development of the keenness of 
the senses in some creatures. He has not teeth and 
claws like the tiger, nor horns like a bull, nor can 
he use his teeth for carpentering Hke the beaver. 
There is scarcely a single physical quality in which 



100 THEISM 

he is not surpassed by one or other of the lower forms 
of Hving creatures. Yet he has become master of 
them all. How ? Well, first of all, he has found out 
a way of making his environment compensate for his 
organic defects. He has done this not as lower 
organizations do by organic modification, but by 
making instruments and tools to serve his purpose. 
That is the first note of man on which I lay stress. 
He makes tools. How much is implied in that fact 
I do not inquire at present, but it does mean some- 
thing; at least there is a new departure. There is 
nothing of this kind to be met with among lower 
animals. Apes may fling stones or fruit at the 
passers-by, but no ape has ever set himself deliber- 
ately to fashion a tool to carry in his hand in readi- 
ness for the hour of need. The rudest tribes of 
which we have any knowledge have this power 
of making and using tools. In fact, we classify the 
ages of human development by reference to the tools 
they made and used. The first tools may have been 
those which lay ready to hand, as Tylor says, 
** Pebbles for slinging or hammering, sharp stone 
splinters to cut or scrape with, branches for clubs and 
spears, thorns or teeth to pierce with." ("Anthro- 
pology," p. 183.) In possession of tools and the 
power of making them he was furnished with the 
means of coping with animals far stronger than he. 

In the first tool made, in the first instrument 
fashioned, there lay the possibiUty and the promise 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 1 01 

of all the vast instrumental command over nature 
characteristic of modern civilization. We do not 
need to dwell in detail on the development of this 
human art. It is a most interesting history, and 
much has been written on it. Men learned to make 
instruments of a more useful and powerful kind, they 
found more suitable and more ductile material for 
their instruments, they subjected the raw material 
they found in their environment to processes of 
manufacture, until they had bronze, and iron tools, 
and weapons. On the form of these weapons they 
also lavished their power of invention, so as to sat- 
isfy their sense of beauty as well as their desire to 
make the instruments effective. Tools, instruments 
for use, yes, and something more, — they discovered 
the use of fire. Very early in the history of man fire 
was discovered and pressed into their service. Hav- 
ing discovered fire they had a still more powerful 
means at their command. With it they had the 
power of modifying the climate in which they lived, 
and of modifying the products of nature into a form 
more fit for human use. Other results followed from 
this tool-making faculty. Clothing to protect them, 
houses to shelter them, and a thousand things, all of 
which formed new departures on the part of this, the 
latest form of life. 

Clearly life has put itself to new uses, and taken 
on new qualities unknown in connection with lower 
forms of life. The relation to the environment is 



102 THEISM 

something new. Every change of life in response 
to the change of the environment has been organic. 
The only response living creatures could make was 
to put forth structures to provide for new needs. 
Feet were modified so that birds might swim, necks 
were elongated so that the creature might have a 
wider range from which to obtain food, and so on 
over the whole range of adaptation of living creatures 
to their environment. They could meet external 
changes only by corresponding changes of the or- 
ganism. The expensiveness of organic change set 
an obvious limit on the possible advance of the living 
being. Up to the advent of man the condition of 
progress seemed to have been the possibility of or- 
ganic change. With the advent of man the nature 
of progress seems to change. 

Not that we are to regard man as altogether in- 
dependent of his environment, nor are we to think 
of him as able to modify it so as to change it al- 
together. If we were to dream of such a possibility, 
the facts of the case would immediately refute our 
imagination ; for gravitation works on us as on 
other organisms. Heat and cold affect us, and the 
seasons in their changes deal with us in their own 
way; our food and our drink must be taken in and 
assimilated, and, in short, our whole physical nature 
is in endless ways in relation to our environment. 
Nor is the influence limited to the daily and yearly 
changes that we experience in the slow succession 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 103 

of the ages. These changes accumulate, and thus 
man has been differentiated into the various races 
of mankind, with their characteristic marks and 
divisions. Differences of colour, stature, physical 
conformations of skull, skeleton, eyes, hair, and so 
on, appear as differences wrought in the various 
races of mankind, whose likeness to each other 
marks them as one. Man lives under conditions 
of time, space, climate, and a thousand other as- 
pects of the environment, and he must respond to 
them all. 

But the difference is that, while animals appear 
to respond to these conditions only in the way of 
organic modification, man responds to them in the 
way of organic modification, but also in another 
and an additional way. He adapts the environment 
to him by putting it to a use which he impresses 
on it — a use which was not there until he invented 
it. The stone which he chips until he can take a 
firm grasp of it means the appearance of a new 
quality of life, a new way of adaptation to the en- 
vironment. On this we lay stress, as it is sufficient 
to give us a point of difference between man and 
other organisms, with regard to which there can be 
no difference of opinion. It is difficult to reach a 
satisfactory limit physically, intellectually, or psy- 
chologically at which we can say, here the differ- 
ence between man and the lower animals begins 
to be manifest. Physically, there is a number of 



104 THEISM 

differences, but the correspondence between part 
and part throughout the organism of some animals 
and of man is so great that a satisfactory delimita- 
tion can scarcely be obtained. So, also, it may be 
said of the feelings, emotions, cognitions, that for 
every aspect of the mental nature of man, some- 
thing resembling it may be forthcoming on an ex- 
amination of mind in animals. So instead of taking 
our stand on these, with regard to which there 
might emerge endless argumentation, we simply 
mark this, on which there is no dispute, man is 
a tool-making animal. This one difference, rightly 
understood, gives in itself a number of other differ- 
ences. It reveals the advent of a power which can 
use its environment in a new way for its own benefit. 
Looking at this from the point of view of advantage, 
the power of using instruments not organically re- 
lated to the organism is of incalculable benefit in 
the struggle for existence. It gave the rational ani- 
mal a superiority over those better equipped than 
himself in the race for life. Some creatures were 
swifter, some stronger, some better armed, some 
more cunning; but this new power enabled him to 
be, in effect, swifter, stronger, and wiser than all 
of them, and in large measure to press them into 
his service. 

Stress is laid on this aspect, as it is a favourite 
way of stating the fact on the part of evolution- 
ists. Reason did give the human species an ad- 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 105 

vantage which grew from more to more. I do not 
protest, for it represents a truth. Intelligence is a 
weapon of enormous power, and the use of it has 
enthroned man as the most powerful of all crea- 
tures. Whether, regarded in this abstract way as 
only a weapon, it could have led on to the results 
we see, is another question. It is, of course, pos- 
sible to look at reason only in this light, and to 
regard it as a cunning device fitted to give the 
possessor of it an advantage in the struggle for ex- 
istence. It has been so regarded, and it has been 
insisted on by those who desire to explain human 
phenomena in terms of biology. Reason has been 
represented as if it acted only in the interests of the 
individual; but this topic we postpone for the mo- 
ment, and shall return to it when we look at the 
theory of Mr. Benjamin Kidd. 

Meanwhile let us follow for a little the significance 
of the change which has happened to living things by 
this new departure. Tools once made, and the power 
of making them once discovered, became one of the 
permanent gains of the race of men. Of this there 
was no reversal. More and better tools were made, 
better materials for the purpose were discovered, 
and tools might pass from hand to hand. It gave 
to man a new view of the uses to which he might 
put the environment, and he found that the environ- 
ment lent itself readily to such uses. It led on to 
greater discoveries. With tools he could build a 



I06 THEISM 

better and more commodious shelter from the ex- 
tremes of heat and cold, could command a more 
steady supply of food, and a more convenient form of 
clothing. As he advanced in the application of his 
power to his environment, he found that it responded 
to his attempts, that it was not a fixed, unyielding 
thing with which he was in intercourse, but one 
that seemed elastic, accommodating, ready to take on 
the forms and adaptations which he desired. The 
earth would grow grain for him, would keep it for 
him, if he could persuade it to take the form of a 
storehouse, thus he could secure his food for a year 
or two before it was needed. Thus he caused his 
environment to meet his needs, to provide him with 
more ample accommodation, more and better food, 
warmth, when the natural source of warmth was 
obscured, clothing, when he lost the power of modi- 
fying himself to meet the varying seasons of the 
year, and so on. It is not necessary to add other 
particulars. We see the story. 

We note that all this gain is at the expense of the 
environment. Gain made by life before the advent 
of man, was attained by the forthputting of more 
adapted structures on the part of the organism. 
Life advanced by modification of structure, and 
adaptation to a climate of large variation was con- 
ducted by changes of the organism, by growing a 
thicker coat of hair, and of a different colour, or by 
the use of many devices to which our attention is 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATION'S lO/ 

drawn by writers on natural history. All of them, 
however, were due to organic modification. But the 
rational being has ceased so far to modify himself, 
and modifies his environment instead. Clearly this 
is a significant change, and one which gives us a 
new conception of the significance of life and its 
possibilities. 

Then we pass on to ask how this gain is to be con- 
served, and how it is to be handed on to the succeed- 
ing generations of the human race. Up to this time 
the gain made by one generation or one individual 
animal could be handed on only to his own posterity, 
that is, if we suppose that acquired qualities can be 
transmitted. The line of transmission of acquired 
qualities could only be the line of descent. This was, 
however, a hazardous line of action. For accidents 
might happen to the strongest, most highly evolved, 
individual of the species ; and his qualities could not 
be transmitted if he had no offspring. Organic 
modification was clearly an unsatisfactory means 
either for the acquisition or the transmission of the 
gains won by the species in the race for good. One 
might predict that the rational being who had found 
a way, or for whom a way had been found, of making 
an advance without modifying himself, would also 
find a way by which the gain would be preserved. 

Here there comes to our view the first sign of the 
truth that reason is not a disintegrating, disuniting 
power, but a power which makes for unity, progress. 



I08 THEISM 

and integration. To preserve and increase the gain 
won by him who had made the first tool, there was 
needed a way by which that power could be com- 
municated to others not necessarily in the line of 
direct descent. Reason found a way, a way unknown 
before. Whatever may be the extent of communica- 
tion between animal and animal, it is evident that that 
way is not to be compared with the way in which 
man may communicate with man. The instrument 
which man has found for the conservation of his hard 
won gain is language, which, when once won, in- 
creased the practical power of reason immeasurably. 
It preserved the past, it led on to greater gain in the 
future. 

Now this instrument which is the offspring of 
reason, which reflects and embodies reason, is mani- 
festly a social product. The very rudiments of 
speech indicate the fact that it arose because men 
had learned to work together. To be able to name 
a thing so that others might recognize it by the name, 
to have a cry which would indicate the approach of 
anger, to have a word the speaking of which would 
give a signal for a pull altogether, the power to com- 
municate to his fellow what was in his own mind, 
and all the other facilities so well known to us that 
we seldom think of them, are of immense significance 
as we look at them when they were a new thing in 
the manifestation of life. It is another illustration 
of the fact that man advances by modifying his en- 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 109 

vironment. The tongue and ear, in the service of 
reason, use the atmosphere for their own intelHgent 
purposes. First for communication to one another 
of their thoughts, wishes, desires, and then for the 
conservation of their gains. Manifestly the power 
gained by men was vastly increased by the discovery 
of this new instrument. Words spoken could be re- 
membered, the experience of one could be communi- 
cated to another by the use of this instrument, and 
a youth could set out on the warpath instructed by 
the warning of those who had had experience of 
war. 

The lessons of experience could be handed on to 
others. What men had learned of land and sea, of 
wood and river, of the nature, habits, and mode of 
life of the animals they followed in the chase, might 
be told, and the gain could be conserved and handed 
on merely by the use of speech and not by hereditary 
transmission alone. So far as we have come we find 
that the advent of reason means deliverance from the 
control of mere biological processes. The making 
of tools was the discovery of a less costly way of ad- 
aptation to the environment than that which life had 
heretofore followed. The discovery of the power of 
speech was the establishment of a means of main- 
taining and extending the gains of men beyond the 
means of transmission by descent, apparently the only 
means of transmitting gain which life had formerly 
discovered. We shall have many other illustrations 



no THEISM 

of this as we proceed. At present we lay stress on 
these two, as in themselves a sufficient proof that 
biology is helpless in the presence of these new 
phenomena. The processes described by biology, as 
adequate for all beings up to man, are clearly inade- 
quate here. It is not possible to deal with man as 
a mere biological animal. 

Nor is it possible to deal with man as if he were 
a mere individual. Looking back to the advent of 
speech, we see that the very condition of its advent 
was that man was a social being. Obviously speech 
implies men living together, conscious of common 
needs, of common aims, and of common powers 
requiring expression. A solitary individual would 
neither feel the need nor have the power of speech. 
But a solitary individual need not be considered, as 
he is only the abstract possibility which exists simply 
for the purpose of making a certain philosophy con- 
ceivable. What that philosophy is we shall see by 
and by. Meanwhile we may take it as axiomatic 
that language is a social product. Its existence is a 
proof that the individual exists as a rational human 
being in relation to society, that he can be, grow, 
develop his rational powers, only in intercourse with 
his fellows. 

Tool-making and speech introduce us to such 
modifications of the environment as make it largely 
new. If we are to understand the progress of man, 
we must look at him not as if he were in intercourse 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS III 

with an environment which is fixed and unchange- 
able, but with one which changes from age to age 
by those modifications which are due to the rational 
being himself. A world modified by the instruments 
made by man is a different world from what it was 
before the advent of that advance. At all events 
it is different to man. A larger difference appears 
when man discovered the way to speak. Now the 
environment is not the old environment which sur- 
rounded men before speech was discovered; it is the 
old, plus the change wrought for him by the presence 
of human beings who can speak and tell him of their 
experience. The environment is no abstraction ; it is 
a real concrete thing of amazing complexity, a com- 
plexity that varies to every individual. We are apt 
to place an abstract individual in an abstract en- 
vironment, but that is not the way of reality. The 
environment of the rational being who had advanced 
so far as to make tools and to speak had taken on 
new meanings, and every rational being born into it 
had an environment enriched by all the experience of 
the race. Not wind and weather, sun, moon, or stars, 
not all the physical surroundings of his existence, 
made up his environment, but to these were added 
the care of parents during his prolonged infancy and 
his helpless childhood, the training he received, the 
beliefs he saw in his acquaintances, and the thousand 
influences which moulded him. This was the envi- 
ronment of the rational being. 



112 THEISM 

Again, we say we must widen our biological method 
if we are to understand the nature of a rational being. 
To speak of environment in the large and general 
way now fashionable, is to mislead. The environ- 
ment is relative to the organism, as the organism is 
relative to the environment. A dog seems to live in 
a world of smells, and other animals in a world suited 
to their prevailing characteristics. A thousand kinds 
may live in a square mile of ground, and each of 
them may have a different environment. An organ- 
ism so far selects its own environment, and takes 
from it what it needs. It is time to put something 
like an arrest on the attempt to apply to the rational 
being those methods of interpretation which may 
have been found adequate in a lower sphere, but 
when applied here can only mislead. Man's environ- 
ment is largely made by man. 

As we follow on down the stream of time we see 
this rational being making more advances. We do 
not see that advance is always made, or that reason 
always hits the mark. On the contrary, we see 
enough of mistakes, many blunders, much stumbling, 
as it tries unaccustomed ways. Reason has had 
sometimes to pay a price for the advantages it has 
won for man. The tentative blundering way in 
which it reaches forth after the accomplishment of 
its aims, the way it uses inadequate means for its 
ends, the miscalculations and failures it makes, are 
in striking contrast to the sureness, accuracy, and 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 113 

completeness with v/hich other animals achieve their 
rnore limited results. It takes time for reason to 
find out what means will achieve certain ends. 
Trial after trial is made, failure is added to 
failure, but reason has the power of learning from 
its failures, and of making them stepping-stones to 
higher things. 

Nor is the heritage which rational men have handed 
on to their successors always a heritage of goodness, 
or righteousness, or truth. It is no story of unmin- 
gled good nor of untroubled progress that history has 
to tell regarding the human race. From one point of 
view the story of life may be told as a story of progress, 
if we neglect the failures and have regard only to those 
who have succeeded. But not even this can be said 
of the human story. The advent of reason, if in one 
way a signal advance, is in another way a story of 
retrogression. True, it won for man the mastery over 
other races, but it did not enable him to master him- 
self. Powerful to enable him to adapt himself to his 
environment, and his environment to him, it seemed 
powerless to guide him on to truth, goodness, and 
love. As we look at reason at work, in the earlier 
races of men, it seems to be in the service of every 
lust and every passion that rise within the heart or 
lure the mind on to the gratification of the baser 
feelings and desires. Reason does not seem to be 
even coordinated with the desires and passions, it 
seems to be a servant to them. It is far from having 
I 



1 14 THEISM 

attained the supremacy which it apparently ought to 
have. The advent of reason, from an ethical point 
of view, results in a degradation and a fall. In some 
ways it brought man below the level of the higher 
animals. Lust, desire, passion, in a rational being, 
took a deeper and a more malignant form. Reason 
enabled the rational being to picture the object of 
desire in more alluring forms, and put something like 
an infinite element into it. 

The lusts and desires of other animals were excited 
only while the objects of them were within their 
reach ; but the rational being could treasure them up 
in memory, paint them in imagination, linger over 
them in anticipation and in retrospect, until he or- 
dered his reason to use all means for the gratification 
of his desire. Passions and desires partake of the 
higher nature of reason. They may be transformed 
from their original teleological function, and the grati- 
fication of them may and sometimes does become an 
end in itself. With the higher animals, feelings, pas- 
sions, desires, seem to be always teleological ; they are 
for the furtherance of the good of the individual and 
of the race. When the teleological end is reached, 
the animal seems satisfied. With the rude human 
being the mere teleological reference seems to become 
confused, uncertain ; as if reason had paralyzed in- 
stinct, and the gratification of the lust of the moment 
had become an end in itself. How shall the human 
being learn self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-con- 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 115 

trol? It is the problem of destiny for the human 
being. For other animals had a guide for conduct ; 
they were under the imperious dictation of instinct, 
that proceeded to its end with a precision that seemed 
infallible. Their ideal was easily realized, if it can be 
called an ideal. But for the rational being the advent 
of reason seemed to have set him free from the sure 
guidance of teleological function, and to have cast 
him loose on a sea of adventure. Reason had at once 
raised him higher and sunk him lower than the other 
animals. 

Thus we see him set out on his perilous path, 
slowly trying to feel his way to the recognition of 
a standard of conduct, and to substitute rational 
self-guidance for the leading of instinct. It would 
be long to tell the story of his failures and success ; 
and in what I do say, I wish not to go beyond the 
domain of science. It is a pathetic story that sci- 
ence tells us of the efforts of the earliest men in their 
search after a standard of conduct. The story is often 
told in an unfriendly, unsympathetic way, as if science 
rejoiced to show us how rude and lowly were the be- 
ginnings of our science, our ethics, our philosophy, 
and our religion. True, their beginnings were lowly 
and rude enough, but still a beginning was made. 
There is something to me very great in the first sign 
of recognition by man of a rule of conduct, other 
than the gratification of his own desires. Science 
may tell me truly that the taboo, or the command 



Il6 THEISM 

which prohibited a certain course of conduct, was 
superstitiously believed and observed, and I shall 
say nothing to the contrary ; but I do say that the 
recognition by man of something sacred, of some- 
thing which he must not touch or desire, of com- 
mands which he must unconditionally obey, was a 
great step on the way by which he might learn 
that for him there was a rational ideal which he 
was bound to realize. As yet he had nothing worthy 
of the great names of science, philosophy, ethics, 
or religion. He is simply a rational being, whose 
rationaUty has not realized itself. 

With rationality exercised in the way of making 
tools and employed in speech, some restraints on the 
lawlessness of human desires must speedily have 
arisen. Habits were formed, actions were discovered 
to be harmful to one's self and injurious to others, 
and these were prohibited. As experience widened, 
the number of these grew until there would exist 
something like a code for conduct. At present 
I am not dealing with supernatural sanctions for 
conduct, though almost all actions were regarded by 
primitive man as subject to, and prescribed by, a 
supernatural power. Leaving that fact alone for the 
present, let us follow on along the line I have 
indicated. 

How is reason to act in harmony with all the other 
faculties of man } In other words, how shall man 
become altogether rational.^ How shall reason en- 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS II/ 

ter into and transform the emotions, cognitions, and 
volitions of man, until they become the feelings, 
thoughts, and actions of a rational, self -guided being? 
For reason is used by me in that wide sense, and the 
goal of a rational being is that he is to become 
rational all through. As we read the story of a man 
pictured to us by the students of anthropology, we 
see him in a very rude and uncultured state. He 
has tools, fires, shelter, food; he has speech, as the 
earliest records of him abundantly show. He has 
subdued certain other animals and pressed them into 
his service. He has certain thoughts about the 
world in which he is, but it is largely a world not 
realized. He has not reached the thought of a fixed 
order of the world; forms of life and death have 
given to him certain thoughts about them, and about 
himself. He has learned that certain actions he 
must not do, certain things he must not touch, and 
certain ceremonies he must perform. He believes 
that if he transgress the one or omit the doing of the 
other, he will pay the penalty. Habits become fixed, 
beliefs grow, and a standard of conduct emerges, and 
these develop into institutions, which again have a 
reflex influence on those who live under them. 
These are realities for those who are born and grow 
up under their influence. They are part of their 
environment. 

A little later we find that man has formed for 
himself a rule of conduct, consisting of rules of a 



Il8 THEISM 

very drastic kind. The individual is almost lost to 
sight, and what we find is a company of men the 
actions and relations of which are prescribed, and 
whose very thoughts are bound into a system of 
rules. The unit seems to be, not the individual, but 
the family or the tribe, and the individual has no 
rights and no freedom ; he is merely a member of 
the tribe. As soon as organization appeared it seems 
to have been carried to an extreme. The existing 
savage and the rude man of primitive times are 
bound together in the most rigid fashion by a set of 
most elaborate rules, all of which are enforced by the 
most awful sanctions. Whatever may be the origin 
of these rules which bind the mind and guide the 
action of the ruder tribes of men, there can be no 
doubt of their existence. The evidence is abundant 
and clear. Rules regarding his relation to the world 
of objects around him, rules regarding his relations 
to the other members of the tribe, rules concerning 
marriage, rules regarding his attitude toward the 
unseen powers on which he felt his dependency, 
were ever present and operative on him. 

Thus a check on the lawlessness of the individual 
was obtained, but apparently at a high price. The 
individual was sacrificed to the society, and the good 
of the tribe seemed to be the end of these elaborate 
rules. At all events, whether that was what was 
meant, that was accomplished. Among the rudest 
tribes and in the beginnings of civilization, what we 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 119 

find is not the individual, but the clan or tribe. 
Power is in the hands of the father or the mother, in 
the hands of the chief or the priest, and every rule 
served to add to the further consolidation of that 
power. This was one way of harnessing reason and 
of making it work within bounds and on certain 
lines. Having dislocated the action of instinct, and 
having introduced uncertainty where certainty ob- 
tained in lower animals, reason was uneasy until it 
obtained another kind of instinct, one instituted, 
guided, and made by itself. For the characteristic 
of reason is that it must justify to itself the action 
it prescribes. It must give a reason for its action. 
Whether it was a true or adequate reason is another 
question. 

Customs, habits, beliefs, arose among men and 
grew into a system, a system which has varied in 
content and form with the different races of men. 
One thing we observe with regard to them all is that 
each had its explanation of the origin, meaning, and 
sanction of their rites and customs. Having obtained 
the rule and acted on it, having established the 
custom and made it binding, the rational being set 
himself to find reasons for his practice. What he 
set forth as explanation is to be found in the my- 
thologies of the race. Mythology is largely expla- 
nation. It is the science, the philosophy, the theology, 
of the races of men. As we read these mythologies, — 
and nowadays they take much time to read them, — 



120 THEISM 

we greatly admire the ingenuity and versatility of our 
ancestors. They were not content with mere accept- 
ance of the customs, rites, ordinances, which were 
handed down to them, and made binding on them ; 
they endeavoured to make their assent to their 
observance rational. The explanation found was 
such as was possible to a rational being whose 
rationality was not yet consciously realized by him- 
self. But the main thing to observe is that an 
explanation was felt to be needed ; the kind of ex- 
planation that was forthcoming is not so important 
for our purpose. 

It is another element in the system of differences 
between the being who is at least implicitly rational, 
and the animal that remains irrational to the end, 
that the one seeks for an explanation of his expe- 
rience and the other does not. The primitive man 
asked himself and others regarding the origin of 
things, their meaning, their ongoing, their goal ; he 
asked also about himself, and his relations to what 
was beneath, around, and above him. His answers 
to these questions are to be found in the mythologies 
and religions which are so sympathetically studied 
to-day. We have our theories of mythology, we 
speak of animism, of the worship of ancestors, of 
polytheism, of theism, and of the strange expe- 
rience of the human race, and of the explanation 
of their experience which they set forth for them- 
selves. Sometimes our theories are a bed of Pro- 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 121 

crustes for the poor facts, which are mangled and 
tortured in the process. Happily the facts survive, 
and their sufficient explanation will be reached by 
and by. 

Meanwhile let us say that in these mythologies of 
the past we have the rudiments of the science of 
to-day. Here is man's first recorded recognition 
of the uniformities of nature. That water would 
assuage thirst to-day and to-morrow, that fruits 
would satisfy hunger, that the animals he chased 
and caught to-day indicated that animals of the 
same kind would behave in a similar way when he 
followed again in pursuit, that the sun would con- 
tinue to rise and give him light and heat, and that 
there was a time for the growing and ripening of 
things and for their decay, would soon be borne 
in upon his mind, and serve to regulate his conduct. 
Other uniformities would be added as experience 
widened, likely. The fact that things maintained 
their properties from day to day must have been 
soon learned by him. Likeness and unlikeness im- 
pressed the primitive man as they impress his de- 
scendants, and a rude classification of them would 
be formed. So science began to be, not in its sepa- 
rateness as with us, but mixed up with many ex- 
planations which were not scientific. 

But the unscientific explanation of the primitive 
man does not affect the fact that here were the be- 
ginnings of science, or the truth of the science which 



122 THEISM 

has grown from such a beginning. Science of a kind 
is there, even if it be only in the form of a recogni- 
tion of a permanence in things and their behaviour. 
Is it contended that early man looked at all things 
from his own standpoint and thought that everything 
had a spirit and life in it .? Is animism the science 
of the primitive man } It is so said by Dr. Tylor. 
I have some doubts as to whether there is evidence 
to warrant such a conclusion. That man could not 
distinguish between the living and the non-living 
seems to me an incredible proposition. That he 
thought some non-living things to have a kind of 
life seems to be true, but he had some special reason 
for that belief. Mr. Spencer explains the matter by 
the supposition that the primitive man thought a 
ghost had taken possession of the non-living object, 
and he therefore accepted it as living. It is allow- 
able to accept Mr. Spencer's testimony that there 
is a fact to be explained, though we cannot accept 
his explanation. But the question is too large for 
discussion here. 

What I am concerned with is the fact that science 
began as soon as man recognized the uniformity of 
nature in some things at least. That these uniformi- 
ties were recognized is apparent from the mytholo- 
gies themselves. Still further, these mythologies 
furnish us with the rudiments of a philosophy and 
an ethic. They contain the first reflections of men 
on the beginnings of things, and on the causes 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 123 

which produced them. Very childish and very- 
pathetic they seem to us as we read of the rise of 
the world and the making of man, but we again 
say that they form a tribute to the greatness of man. 
To ask the question, even though they could find no 
answer, shows that life had put forth new phe- 
nomena. If early man found an explanation of the 
universe in chaos, and dwelt on a way in which chaos 
did come to an ordered world, well ! modern philoso- 
phy, in some moods and in some minds, does go back 
to a lifeless chaotic cloud of fifty miUion years ago. 
Others again dwell on the persistence of force, and 
tell of a wonderful transformation by which the 
homogeneous becomes heterogeneous. It would ap- 
pear that with regard to origins we are as helpless 
as they. 

To mythology as bearing on theology and religion, 
we shall return at a later stage of our argument. 
For the right understanding of the philosophy and 
ethics of early man, we have to look at the institu- 
tions which he has formed. The fundamental insti- 
tution is the family. It was a long time in the 
history of man before the family was recognized 
in its ethical significance. The history of marriage 
is a sad story, and the whole business can scarcely 
be described. The relations between the sexes were 
no doubt subject to certain regulations even in the 
rudest tribes, and a restraint of some kind was laid 
on the lusts of man. But it is evident that until 



124 THEISM 

monogamous marriage became the rule, ethical 
progress could scarcely be attained. This lies at 
the foundation of family life ; and the moral state of 
a community may be estimated by the regard they 
have to the holiness of family life. For the family 
is the first and most important of those institutions 
which help to mould the opening life of a young 
man or woman. The unsatisfactory character of 
man's ethical development may be largely traced 
to the fact that the ideal of a family appears com- 
paratively late in the history. Instead of a family 
in the proper sense of the word, we may have a 
matriarchate in which kinship was reckoned by the 
mother, or a polygamous establishment in which the 
relation of parent and child had little ethical signifi- 
cance, or there may be polyandry ; in fact, you may 
have and actually have all kinds of relationships 
established between men and women into which 
purity, permanence, and equality did not enter. 
Still into such imperfect relationships there entered 
something of the tender self-sacrifice of a mother's 
love, and something of a father's providing care. 
The helplessness of a child during its prolonged 
infancy made a strong appeal to the mother, and 
drew forth something of love, of exquisite tender- 
ness, and devoted service. 

Thus, while the ideal of a real family lay in the 
distant future, and could not be realized until reason 
had come to a larger fulfilment, enough was attained 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 125 

to show forth what a family ideal might come to 
be, when human character would attain to a more 
rational completeness. As it was in the olden world, 
marriage could not attain its ideal end. It was too 
often the source of contradiction and confusion, 
and both the physiological fact of sex and the emo- 
tional fact of sexual love became antagonistic to the 
very notion of ethics. They were too often sepa- 
rated from their teleological function, and men were 
powerless to transfigure them into that higher order 
in which the light of reason works through love. 
Still, even in their imperfection, they enable us to see 
in the mutual love of parents and children, in the 
mutual bonds that made the family one, and in the 
service of self-sacrifice which the members of a fam- 
ily felt bound to render to one another, the promise 
of a larger future. In the family the first lessons 
of experience are learned, the discovery is made that 
the child is one among others, bound up with others 
in a larger unity, and held together with them in the 
bonds of common interests and common work. Such 
lessons as these could be learned in the imperfect 
family of the ancient world. Further, the children 
of the house had at their disposal all the experience 
of the parents. In the family they learned to 
speak, to name things and to use them, they learned 
to love and to work. On the other hand, parents 
simply as parents rose to a greater height as human 
beings, their hearts throbbed with a greater love, 



126 THEISM 

they looked at life with a wider outlook, and they 
rose in the scale of being, because of the young 
beings whose life was bound up in theirs. 

In the family life, even of the olden world, we find 
the great sphere of ethical training. Here is the first 
lesson that reason learned in its endeavour to make 
for itself a rational world. Here an individual pre- 
disposed to use reason for himself alone as a mere 
instrument for his own pleasure, or glory, learned 
that reason had a grander meaning and a wider 
purpose. The individual learned that he was not 
separate and isolated, that in fact he could only 
find himself by losing himself, and find himself 
transformed and glorified by knowing himself (as 
Hegel has said) as the unity of himself with another 
and of another with him. Such is the love that lies 
at the basis of family life. Then comes the larger life 
of the family, when fathers and mothers find them- 
selves in the unity which is made up of parents 
and children. Glorified in fatherhood and mother- 
hood as children are given to them, glorified still fur- 
ther as the children win more room in their hearts, 
parents give more and more love as they watch 
the growing intelligence, the warm affection, and 
the thousand winning ways of children. This is the 
first school of humanity, good for the lessons taught 
to parents and to children. Here we learn the 
first lessons in self-reverence, self-knowledge, self- 
control. Here we find the first example of the great 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 1 27 

ethical law that a man must lose himself in order 
to find himself. 

Speaking for myself, I must say that I feel un- 
speakably grateful to Hegel and to the many eminent 
men who work in philosophy under the inspiration 
and the hope inspired by Hegel, for the wondrous 
light they have cast on the significance of the family. 
I say this all the more emphatically as I do not agree 
with them in some of their contentions. *' The unity 
which is founded on natural feeling," says Professor 
Mackenzie, "must precede that which depends on 
acquired sympathies and thoughts. To begin with 
the love of humanity, would be to begin with a cold 
abstraction. The family is like a burning glass, 
which concentrates human sympathies on a point. 
Within that narrow circle selfishness is gradually 
overcome, and wider interests developed. Each 
one is supplied with the opportunity of knowing 
a few human beings thoroughly, than which nothing 
is more important as a first stage in the transcen- 
dence of the merely individual self. One who knows 
only himself inwardly, and sees others only by a 
kind of outward observation, which in a large cir- 
cle is an almost inevitable result, is apt to become 
for himself too entirely the centre of his world, 
if, indeed, he ever forms a world or cosmos for 
himself at all. The family enables a few persons 
to become not merely objects for each other, but 
parts of a single life; and the unity thus effected 



128 THEISM 

may then be very readily extended as sympathies 
grow." ("Social Philosophy," pp. 363-4, 2d edi- 
tion.) 

Parts of a single life — it is a significant phrase, 
and states in few words the ethical significance of the 
family when it is properly constituted. But it pre- 
supposes that the family proceeds from one union 
and not from many, from one centre formed by two 
who have found themselves in each other. But we 
shall not return to the undeveloped family life of the 
early races of mankind. On that, enough has been 
said already. We may reassert, however, that im- 
perfect though it was, it yet had an important bear- 
ing on the training of men, and it helped them to 
know that reason was not theirs in order to be used 
as an instrument for the gaining of merely individual 
ends, but that it was theirs in order that man might 
recognize himself as a part of a whole, and that he 
could not realize himself save in relation to a whole. 
This has an unspeakable significance for the develop- 
ment of man, as a sane and sound, moral and rational, 
being. We have laid stress on the family as the 
sphere in which this has been effectively done. The 
unity of the family is a moral and spiritual unity, 
constituted by spiritual bonds. The unity of an 
organism is physical and visible, and is constituted 
for organic ends. It is one of the functions of 
reason to transcend the unities constituted by organic 
ends, and to recognize larger unities, based on bonds 



RATIONAL LIFE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 1 29 

which do not reveal themselves to sense, and cannot 
be traced by physical causation. The bond which 
holds the family together is moral and spiritual, and 
is cognizable only by a rational being, as it can be 
constituted by rational beings alone. The begin- 
ning of such a possibility is to be thankfully recog- 
nized, and the growth of it is one of the signs 
which herald the coming of a better day for hu- 
manity. It was a great triumph when the rational 
being recognized himself as a member of a larger 
whole, and comprehended that bonds which he could 
not touch, nor see, nor handle, were stronger, and 
held him with a firmer grasp than any physical bond 
could do. There were many agencies needed to 
bring about this great end. And of these agencies 
the family was the first and one of the strongest. 
But then the family was only after all one circle 
within a larger circle, and the life which had no in- 
terest beyond the family was a contracted life. It 
might look at reason as an instrument to be used 
only for the advance of the family, and the struggle 
of reason against selfishness might be repeated in 
this larger sphere. The completeness of the family 
and the satisfaction which the members found in one 
another might hinder them from the recognition that 
the family could find their ethical significance only 
in the recognition of the fact that they were members 
of a still larger whole. Thus on every step of the 
upward spiral, the conflict between the selfish and 



130 THEISM 

the rational was renewed. It still goes on and will 
go on, until the worth and freedom of the individual 
are recognized, and the fact accepted that the worth 
and value of the individual can only be realized in 
a society which receives his all from him and returns 
it to him enhanced a thousand fold. 



THE MAKING OF MAN 

Something of the significance of the family has 
been seen ; and the part it plays in the evolution of 
man is great. Part of the heritage of humanity 
belongs to the parents before they have come 
together; stores of spiritual energy laid up for 
them in the tradition of the ages. But it is in the 
faces of the father and the mother that the child 
finds, in concrete form, the touch that wakens up 
the dull materials of humanity and quickens them 
into emotional and spiritual life. Spiritual parent- 
ship takes the place of merely natural parentship, 
and in the interchange of affection between parents 
and children, fatherhood and sonship take on an 
added glory. The child reveals to the parents depths 
of life undreamed of before ; gives a new centre to 
existence, a new stimulus to effort, and builds for 
them a wider horizon and a larger future. 

As has been said already, the family is only one 
stage of the progress of man. Beyond the family 
is dimly seen the wider circle of the tribe, and the 
city. We say dimly seen, for in the early ages the 

131 



132 THEISM 

vision is not distinct. The gain was very slow, and 
not for a long time have we the emergence of the 
state. True, we have at an early stage in history 
gigantic specimens of world empires, in which the 
few seemed to use the many for their own pur- 
poses, simply as instruments. The ancient world 
empire was no realized ideal of happiness or prog- 
ress for men. True, the works remain to this hour ; 
symbols of many things, and are fitted to give rise 
to many reflections. We wonder at the skill, labour, 
cooperation, and resources of the generations that 
built the pyramids, and baked the bricks of Babylon. 
But these — triumphs of organization though they 
were — did not give the promise of permanence, for 
the organization was impressed on the individuals 
from above and from without, and did not guaran- 
tee a corresponding inward growth of the individual. 
The building of world empires was premature, and 
they passed away. 

All along the line of progress we see the con- 
flict between the individual and what we may call 
society. The individual tends in irrational fashion 
to look at reason and all its implications as some- 
thing to be used for himself, irrespective of the 
claims of others. While association in family life' 
gives him some idea of the obligation that lies on 
him to regard the claims of others, speedily the 
family becomes simply a larger unity, the interests 
of which may be regarded as in conflict with the 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 33 

interests of others. Rivalry, competition, and con- 
flict are renewed on the larger scale, and the 
family is held in abstraction precisely as the in- 
dividual was held in abstraction and looked at as 
a separate being bound up in his own interests. 
Similarly, the tribe became a unit of abstraction, 
and its interests were held to be in conflict with the 
interests of others. Thus the course of history is 
marked by conflicts of all kinds, and conflicts which 
assumed a larger scale as the organized unities of 
men became larger and larger. Wars between in- 
dividuals became the vendettas of families ; these 
became wars between villages, and these in turn 
became the strife between states, and the struggle 
continued on a larger scale, and it is not over yet. 

The conflict was not altogether evil. There were 
many features of the human character which could 
be developed only through conflict. Courage, en- 
durance, skill, foresight, command of oneself and 
of the resources of life, might be developed through 
the call which war made on the faculty of man. 
Nor were these all. The other-regarding virtues, 
also, found opportunity of realization. Loyalty to 
leaders, obedience, trust, self-sacrifice, and a pas- 
sion for the country which gave a man birth, grew 
in the conflict. The effect produced on the mind 
of a people by a continued conflict with their neigh- 
bours may be the production of the other-regard- 
ing disposition. Much might be written from this 



134 THEISM 

point of view, and a great deal of what is good 
and worthy has been written. What a wealth of 
inspiring thought and high-souled emotion lies in the 
war songs of a people ! The iron hand of war 
gripped them, welded them into a unity, made them 
feel the pulse of a common life, made them quiver 
at the thought of a common danger, made them 
feel vividly, as they would not otherwise have felt, 
the unity of a mother country, as if she were their 
mother indeed, and reinforced the feeling of pa- 
triotism with a thousand associations in which there 
was nothing mean or sordid. Patriotism aroused 
somehow, stimulated and quickened by all the asso- 
ciations of dangers manfully faced and overcome, of 
triumphs won by bravery, courage, and endurance, 
forms one of the stages in the upward progress of 
humanity. 

A flood of war to rebaptize the nations ; yes, war 
has had that effect once and again in the history 
of the world. The trials and triumphs of war have 
had their permanent effects on human character 
and development. If we limit our view to one peo- 
ple, and refuse to look across the border, we might 
speak at length on the development of the manly 
virtues, might sing that it is sweet to die for one's 
native country, and dwell on the reflex results on 
human character, and the widening of the bounds 
of feeling, and so on. In the same way we might 
dwell on the struggle for existence in the lower world, 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 35 

and show eloquently how the strong became stronger, 
and the swift, swifter, until the higher races ap- 
peared. In neither the one case nor the other is 
the picture an alluring one. In both cases, I must 
say, that as I read, I long for a heaven for the 
failures, for some compensation for the unsuccess- 
ful. And verily they have had their compensation, 
and the meek inherit the earth. But of this I shall 
speak later on. 

The story of this incessant competition may be 
read from another point of view. I read it not so 
much in relation to the victory which one people, 
city, or tribe wins over another, as in the light 
which it casts on the growth of human character. 
It is a step in the process of welding men together, 
it is one of the cases in which something produces 
its opposite. The war, which had such sad results 
when looked at from one point of view, had good 
effects on the nation who made war. It taught the 
rational being that he had wider interests than his 
personal interests, that he had larger aspirations 
than those of his family or his tribe, and it taught 
him that all his rational powers ought to be used in 
the service of the wider unity. The devotion of a 
man to the state, the development of the thought 
of duty to the fatherland, the discovery of himself as 
a citizen of the state, as a responsible member of a 
larger whole, was a great gain, won, as all ethical 
gains are won, at a tremendous cost. 



136 THEISM 

The cost is great, and grows in magnitude as one 
thinks of it. Strife everywhere, man against man, 
tribe against tribe, city against city, state against 
state, reason turned from its ideal and made an in- 
strument of disintegration, is that the record of his- 
tory, and the condition of progress ? Are men to 
grow into larger and larger unities, to organize 
themselves into wider communities, in order to co- 
operate for war on a larger scale ? Every stranger 
an enemy, and every one of unknown speech one to 
be attacked, such appeared to be the state of the 
human race at one time, and it is not unusual to-day. 
The problem is to think out how this process will 
result in our higher civilization, with its ethics, philos- 
ophy, religion, with its sense of the value of the in- 
dividual, and of the worth of human life. It is a 
great and difficult problem, look at it as we may. 

A problem less difficult may occupy us first. How 
shall there be brought into existence a visible com- 
munity of men and women united together in such 
a way that there will result a coordination and sub- 
ordination of individuals and their actions toward 
some common end that belongs to all, and can be 
enjoyed by each } The first solution of the problem 
is the family. There it has found a partial solution, 
but only on a small scale, and for a short time. The 
unity, observe, is not merely organic ; if it is to exist 
at all, it must be constituted out of elements so far 
independent of each other as to be individuals who 



THE MAKING OF MAN 137 

can move, act, think, feel, and will on their own ac- 
count. In other words, the unity must be consti- 
tuted on rational grounds and upheld by rational 
beings, who have the power of disrupting at their 
pleasure. I am aware that the social contract no 
longer appears in philosophy, and aware, also, that 
constitutions grow and are not manufactured. I 
have put the matter as I did merely for the sake of 
stating the problem, and of enabling us to realize 
what a problem it is. Carlyle puts a parallel prob- 
lem, " Given a world of knaves, to deduce an honesty 
from their united action." Given a world of appar- 
ently disunited beings, how will you train them to 
act together, to care for a common interest, and to 
recognize that they must work together, if they are 
to obtain a good worth having } As I said, the first 
answer is the family. In it a common interest is 
obvious, and feeling and affection help to build up 
this unity of love and mutual benefit. 

Beyond the family there are again obvious com- 
mon ways of action, and bonds of union. Trade, 
commerce, union for a temporary purpose, which 
requires cooperation and mutual trust for its reahza- 
tion, these readily occur to us all. Outside of partic- 
ular families, and yet within the larger unity of the 
state, people unite themselves in a thousand ways 
for different ends, drawn together because they form 
friendships with each other, or united because they 
follow a common pursuit. These bonds are volun- 



138 THEISM 

tarily constituted, and are all the stronger and more 
disinterested on that account. Within the larger 
society there may be many people associated to- 
gether for special ends, and the educative power of 
such unions may be great. In these the compulsory 
character of merely natural unions slips into the 
background, and men learn that though they have 
formed bonds for themselves, they are not less bound, 
but more. Along the line of such association freely 
formed, and carried out with honour and fideUty, is 
to be found a large part of the moral education of 
mankind. For the need is to prevent the gift of 
reason from being merely the addition of a disruptive 
element to life. 

That such a view of the quality which distin- 
guishes man from other animals may be taken is 
quite apparent. It has been taken by the possess- 
ors themselves, and, also, by those who have spec- 
ulated on the question. By the possessors them- 
selves, for, as we have seen, it is one of the hardest 
problems that have emerged in history to persuade 
men that a selfish use of reason is irrational. It 
seems almost to be a law of history that only one 
good result can be won at one time. Human growth 
seems to be made by the process of laying emphasis 
on one thing at a time, to the neglect of another 
which in the long run is of equal importance. It 
would almost seem that in order that a truth may 
be recognized at all, it must be emphasized as if it 



THE MAKING OF MAN 139 

were the whole truth. The immediate illustration 
of this law is that of the relation of the individual 
to society. In order that the individual may learn 
to know that he is little in himself, apart from his 
fellows, the way of his training, as we see it in his- 
tory, is to bind him with his fellows in so drastic a 
fashion that he is scarcely able to make any move- 
ment on his own account. 

Rules gird him about, customs cluster around him, 
his feeling, thought, action, are prescribed for him, 
and apparently for him there is no initiative, and 
scarcely any independent course. Actions are done 
because others have done them, observances are held 
because they have been handed down, and in all 
the round of the experience of every day the course 
is prescribed. Certain trades are hereditary; men 
are bound to live and work as their fathers did; 
castes are formed ; in fact, illustrations of this are 
so numerous that it is not needful to enter into 
detail. Formed as they were in the early ages of 
the human race, they must from the nature of the 
case be rude, irrational, and inadequate. But it may 
have been the only way of teaching the rational 
being the necessity of recognizing the wider claims 
of reason. As obedience was the way of fitting a 
man for the responsibility of command, so the way 
of teaching the individual the responsibility attached 
to rationality as such, was to bind him in bonds 
which almost rendered disobedience impossible. At 



140 THEISM 

all events that has been the historical method of 
training the rational being and of teaching him the 
right use of reason. 

As at one time the making of rules for the guid- 
ance of man seemed to be the main object of society, 
there came a time when the breaking of rules, shown 
to be inadequate, and the criticism of beliefs proven 
to be without evidence, came to be the highest duty 
of man. The making of rules, as well as the break- 
ing of them, was alike the work of the rational being. 
Late in human history came the recognition of the 
fact that rules were made for man, not man for rules. 
To put it more clearly, the discovery of the individual 
person and his worth appears as one of the latest 
achievements of man. We might write a philosophy 
of history from this point of view. We might set 
forth the strenuous work of the earliest races of the 
human family to subdue the merely selfish rational 
being and make him subject to the dominating 
claims of the whole. The success of that task 
might seem to be almost too complete. Then there 
might be set forth the slow process of the emancipa- 
tion of the individual from the chains and shackles 
forged for him by the rules, traditions, and customs 
of society. 

How many mighty movements of the historic ages 
converge toward this end ! ' For us modern men 
the mightiest are Rome, Greece, and Palestine. The 
great structure of Roman law is one of the mightiest 



THE MAKING OF MAN 14I 

achievements of the human mind. Its vast and ma- 
jestic form stands at the beginning of our modern 
civilization, and, in its completeness, it sets forth and 
vindicates the mutual coordination of all in the one 
great system in which both gods and men had their 
place and their part. Each person had his position 
and his rights, and these could be vindicated if any- 
one encroached on them. Much might be said on 
this were there time. Alongside of the debt we owe 
to Rome is the debt we owe to Greece. The philoso- 
phy of Greece, its reflection on nature, on art, on the 
city-state, on man as a thinker, on man as an indi- 
vidual, as a member of the state, as a being free and 
yet under law ; in fact, all the mighty achievements of 
Greece in science and philosophy were elements for 
the solution of the great problem of the relation of 
man to men and of men to man. But not from Rome 
nor from Greece did the greatest service come toward 
the recognition of the worth of the individual. To 
another people much is due, and from another source 
did the greatest influence toward the emancipation 
of the individual from the irrational bonds that bound 
him come. From the Hebrews, too, came the recog- 
nition of the immense worth of the individual life and 
of the contribution which the individual might make 
to the worth of humanity. It was from the Hebrews 
that the largest contribution came, the worth of which 
we shall not attempt now to measure. From Rome, 
Greece, and Palestine came those mighty influences 



142 THEISM 

that moulded man, and fitted him to ask the question 
of how society is to be built up, without the sacrifice of 
the individuality of the individual. Notwithstanding 
the mighty influences of these historic peoples, and 
notwithstanding the new spirit that breathed over man 
at the advent of Christianity, it was a long time before 
men consciously faced the question, — of the relation of 
man to men. When it was raised by Descartes in his 
own way, and when he asked for a rational sanction 
for everything that he could question, he opened the 
way for a reaction that isolated the individual, insisted 
on his independent worth, and actually left the notion 
of society out of account. It was a time great in ab- 
stractions : an abstract mind was beside an abstract 
body, and men made for themselves the great problem 
of getting body and mind again in relation. It was 
a time, too, when men looked at everything as fixed, 
static, unchangeably determined in its own nature, 
and the problem is like the problem of biology to- 
day, — how to get the organism back into unity after 
they have disrupted it into fragments. 

So, also, with regard to the relation of the indi- 
vidual to society, men had to invent ways of restoring 
the lost unity. The abstract individual restored to 
some recognition of his relative independence, had 
his revenge on the society which had enslaved him. 
So, too, the abstract individual set his discoverers to a 
task harder than ever was Egyptian bondage. Given 
the abstract individual in his completeness and inde- 



THE MAKING OF MAN I43 

pendence, to construct society, that was the problem 
of a philosophy which started from the individual. 
It would be long to tell the story of the social con- 
tracts, of the liberty, equality, and fraternity ; of the 
devices which were set forth as the way in which so- 
ciety was constituted out of independent individuals. 
It was a reaction against that method which neglected 
the individual, which made him merely a link in a 
chain, and gave him no position of worth in relation 
to society. But like all reactions it went too far. It 
in its turn neglected the other factor. 

The literature of the Auf klarung is instructive in 
many ways. Nor are we done with it yet. It is with 
us to-day on our side of the water, and, perhaps, on 
your side too. From it, in particular, we have got 
those definitions of reason and rationalism which have 
made it seem to be the private property of the indi- 
vidual, which has set it in opposition to other parts 
of human nature, and given occasion to the contrarie- 
ties of reason and faith, reason and authority, and 
of other contradictions within human nature, which 
have played a great part in modern thought. Of 
course, if you begin with the individual, whether it be 
an individual atom, or anything else, you can scarcely 
persuade the individual to become part of a system. 
It is easy to take a watch to pieces, it takes a skilled 
workman to put it together again. Starting as it did 
from the individual, laying stress on his separateness 
and isolation as it did, the philosophy of individu- 



144 THEISM 

alism had to fall back on artificial ways in order to 
restore somehow the social unity which it had dis- 
rupted. It was the counterpart of the previous age- 
long movement that had resulted in the suppression 
of the individual. It did a good work for human 
thought in laying emphasis on the neglected factor. 
It taught us that if we are to understand ourselves 
and our cosmical position, we must travel from society 
to the individual, and from the individual to society, 
and not till we have done both shall we be prepared 
to make that synthesis which shall recognize that each 
is for the other, in the other, and that taken apart 
they fall into meaninglessness. 

Leaving for subsequent treatment the conception 
of personality, let us set ourselves to think of the 
largest unity we have yet reached. Humanity is 
one, subsisting in real connection of whole and part 
from the first appearance of man until the present 
day ; all the generations are linked together in un- 
broken sequence, and each generation adds to the tra- 
dition of its predecessors ; it is a great thought, but 
one that we can scarcely think. Yet it is true and 
real that the words I use in order to convey my 
thought to you actually have been formed by the 
mental striving of all men who have lived and 
worked on the earth. The instruments I use from 
day to day to do my work are a direct inheritance 
handed down from the first tool-maker. The ship 
on which I voyaged to these Western shores is 



THE MAKING OF MAN 14^ 

descended from the rude canoe which first made 
the water that separates land from land to serve 
as a way of communication. The mighty machin- 
ery of to-day which places all the resources of the 
planet at the service of every man, is the fruit of 
that inventive faculty displayed by the earliest work- 
ers of mankind. 

These things come first to mind as we seek for 
illustrations of the solidarity of man. But, while 
they are the most obvious, they are not the strongest 
or the most vivid of such illustrations. The emotions 
of men are of the same kind from the beginning 
until now. Pain and pleasure are sought and avoided 
all through the ages, and desire and aversion are 
still the motives which spur to action. No doubt 
the experiences of the ages have enriched the con- 
tents of the emotions, if they have not changed 
their character. Nor has the intellectual character 
changed through the ages, however much the 
settled data on which intellect works have been 
increased. Man is one through all time, and the 
connections between the successive generations are 
exceedingly close. The first emotions, desires, af- 
fections of men have flowered and come to the fruit 
they bear to-day, and the earliest experience of good 
and evil has had in it the great ethical principles 
which guide the action of the wisest and best to 
this hour. 

Nor do we find anything different as we question 



146 THEISM 

the philosophies of the past and present. Long 
ago appeared the materialist, the positivist, and the 
idealist. The primitive man looked at the world 
outside, and seemed to think of himself simply as 
part of that world, determined by it, and made by 
it. Ere reflection following on action taught him 
to know himself as a source of energy, he regarded 
himself, so far as he had thought at all, as a product 
of the world outside. Nor is that way of thinking 
dead yet. Uniformities of succession generate uni- 
formities of thought, we are told, and the advocate 
of that view spends volumes to prove that matter 
makes mind, and necessities of matter may be trans- 
formed into mental necessities. To look at matter 
as first and causal, and productive of mind, has been 
always with men, and still is here, and the unity of 
thinking is so far proven. But the idealist view did 
not linger far behind. For soon the early man found 
that he could do something and be something. He 
knew himself as a worker, as one that had feelings, 
desires, wants, and who could take steps to carry 
out his wishes ; thus the world became transformed 
before his mind, and became a world figured in his 
own likeness. So the great ideal philosophies took 
their beginning, and these also appear perennially, 
for they, too, have their roots deep down in the spirit- 
ual nature of man. From the beginning men have 
asked the same questions, and they will continue to 
ask them to the end. The answers to these ques- 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 47 

tions make up the science, the ethics, the philosophy, 
and the theology of the world. 

I deal with the questions and the answers in order 
to illustrate the theme I have in hand, namely, the 
unity of man. However great the advance that has 
been made, however wide our knowledge, and how- 
ever great our command over the forces of nature, 
the advance itself is a testimony to the unity of that 
human nature to which it is due. Physically, morally, 
and intellectually man is one. We shall not find 
the union to be constituted, as the organism is con- 
stituted, by physical bonds. To understand the unity 
of man in any adequate way, we must transcend the 
physical and the visible, and seek the bond of union 
in the invisible, that is, in the intellectual, moral, and 
spiritual, or, to use the word which includes all these, 
in the rational sphere. 

The demand which reason makes on reason to 
think humanity as a unity is confessedly great, and 
it is difficult to say whether we can think it so. It 
is difficult to think of the past generations of men 
in their concrete reality ; it is difficult to think the 
people living in their concrete reality at the present 
hour, and it is scarcely possible to realize at all the 
generations yet to be. When we try to realize the 
past, we break it up into histories of nations, of in- 
stitutions, of philosophies, of religions, and so on, 
and perhaps that is the best we can do. But we 
ought to remember that all these histories are only 



148 THEISM 

aspects of the great reality that has been, and has 
been acted in sorrow, trial, and suffering in the lives ■ 
and acts of men on this round earth. At all events, 
this thought should make us a little more humble, 
a little less sure as to the conclusions we draw from 
our reasonings and philosophies — the unity of man 
is there whether we can think it or no. And in a 
measure we can think it, at least so far as to recog- 
nize that it is there. 

We may rise to the magnitude of the thought 
slowly and gradually. From the family to the tribe, 
from the tribe to the city, from the state-city to the 
state, from the state to the great federal union, and 
from the great federal union to the federation of the 
world, and to the recognition of the fact that God 
has made of one blood all the nations of the earth. 
In some way we must rise to this magnitude if we 
are to understand the problem which we set to our- 
selves. It is easier to grasp the lesser unities in 
our thought, and to apprehend the significance of 
the family and so on; but our thought cannot rest 
until we recognize the larger unity in which these 
lesser unities are. Nor can we recognize fully our 
own significance as moral beings existing here and 
now, unless we see in a measure our relations to all 
the rational beings which have been and shall be. 
It is the business of reason to realize relations and 
to act on the recognition of them. Nor will the 
recognition of these invisible but real bonds which 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 49 

bind us to the past of humanity be without influence 
on our thought, character, and conduct. 

I am aware that in this contention of mine I am 
running the risk of contradiction by many of our fore- 
most workers in philosophy. Professor Wallace says : 
" The rule for man is not merely to accept the given, 
but to mould and fashion it for himself. In him 
nothing merely is ; it is to be ; it has taken on it a new 
law, the law of becoming, as the law which governs 
him and the things he deals with. With his emer- 
gence on the scene, the world has, as it were, got 
a new relative centre ; all things have become, or, 
rather, are more and more becoming, anthropocen- 
tric." (" Natural Theology and Ethics," p. 112.) Pro- 
fessor James, of Harvard, to whom we all owe so 
much, for he has shown how philosophy may also be 
Hterature, says, in an oft-quoted passage, which also 
he has quoted from himself : " We have no organ or 
faculty to appreciate the simply given order. The 
real world as it is given objectively at this moment is 
the sum total of all its beings and events now. But 
can we think of such a sum } Can we realize for an 
instant what a cross-section of all existence at a 
definite point of time would be.'' While I talk and 
the flies buzz, a sea-gull catches a sea fish at the 
mouth of the Amazon, a tree falls in the Adirondack 
wilderness, a man sneezes in Germany, a horse dies 
in Tartary, and twins are born in France. What 
does that mean } Does the contemporaneity of these 



1 50 THEISM 

events with one another, and with a million others as 
disjointed, form a rational bond between them, and 
unite them into anything that means for us a world ? 
Yet such a collateral contemporaneity, and nothing 
else, is the real order of the world. It is an order 
with which we have nothing to do but to get away 
from it as fast as possible. As I said, we break it ; we 
break it into histories, and we break it into arts, and 
we break it into sciences ; and then we begin to feel 
at home." (" The Will to Believe," pp. 1 18-9.) Pres- 
ident Hyde quotes the passage from Professor James 
and adds : "The passage from Professor James shows 
that the world in which we live is a construction made 
by the mind in the interest of the heart and will : and 
that in this one great world there are subordinate 
worlds of history, science, and art. It shows how 
utterly unintelligible and uninhabitable and unendur- 
able a real as opposed to an ideal world would be ; and 
that practical idealism is simply a presentation of the 
familiar facts of everyday life in their rational rela- 
tions, as elements in a logical process and parts of an 
organic whole." ("Practical Idealism," pp. 5-6.) Mr. 
Herbert Spencer has a passage in which he enume- 
rates a number of simultaneous occurrences happen- 
ing at the same moment, and his inference is that the 
unknowable power must be something higher than 
intelligence, for no intelligence could endure so heavy 
a strain. Thus from Hegelians, Non-Hegelians, and 
agnostics there is a consensus of opinion which seems 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 5 1 

to condemn my argument as it has been set forth up 
to this time. 

I find myself in agreement with these authorities 
in so far as they set forth the necessity under which 
we lie as to the breaking up of things, and the fact 
that the world we live in is constituted by our own 
activity. We do and we must break up things ; but 
then we do and we must unite the breakages into a 
unity again, and make them as like the original unity 
as we can. In fact. Professor James does this very 
thing himself in the sequel to the passage we have 
quoted. *'We make ten thousand separate serial 
orders of it, and on any one of these we react as 
though the others did not exist. We discover among 
its various parts relations that were never given to 
sense at all (mathematical relations, tangents, squares, 
and roots, and logarithmic functions), and out of an 
infinite number of these we call certain ones essential 
and lawgiving, and ignore the rest. Essential these 
relations are, but only for our purpose, the other 
relation being just as real and present as they, and 
our purpose is to conceive simply and to foresee. 
Are not simple conception and prevision subjective 
ends pure and simple.? They are the ends of 
what we call science ; and the miracle of miracles 
— a miracle not yet exhaustively cleared up by 
any philosophy — is that the given order lends it- 
self to the remodelling. It shows itself plastic to 
many of our scientific, to many of our aesthetic, to 



152 THEISM 

many of our practical purposes and ends." (pp. 
119-20.) 

It is a striking paragraph, eloquently and felici- 
tously expressed, and yet a great deal is implied in 
it which has not found expression. The thousand 
separate serial orders can be made by us, because 
there is one order lying at the basis of them, as the 
condition of their possibility. If some seem to re- 
spond, as we react on them, as if the others do not 
exist, the response is not complete, but measured 
and conditioned by the others, and we, perhaps, un- 
consciously, make allowance in our reaction for their 
existence and their influence. Illustrations of this 
have been given already, and we need not repeat 
them here. I confess that it is difficult to follow 
Professor James when he asks, " Are not simple 
conception and prevision subjective ends pure and 
simple } " What, then, becomes of the objectivity of 
science, and of the fact that nature will carry out our 
purpose, if we can intelligently instruct her to do so } 
We at once get back the objectivity of science in the 
miracle of miracles which no philosophy has yet ex- 
haustively cleared up. The given order lends itself 
to the remodelling. Yes, but that is only one-half 
of the story. The remodelling would do well to lend 
itself to the given order. 

In truth, there seems to lie at the basis of the view 
of Professor James a kind of belief that there is an 
irrational, contingent, and irreducible element in the 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 53 

given order. Hence the way in which he piles up 
the number of events which happen contemporane- 
ously all over the world, which we cannot reduce to 
any order. The number might be indefinitely in- 
creased, and the impression made by them might 
also be multiplied. It is quite true that we have to 
make our selection out of the actualities of the world, 
if we are to understand its ongoing at all. But the 
talk goes on as if the world were unintelligible until 
we came into it. We speak as if we constitute the 
order of the world, and as if the rationality of the 
world depended on our remodelling of it. I venture 
humbly but emphatically to enter my dissent. The 
thousand serial separate orders which we make of 
the world are possible because the relations are 
there already, and, while in a sense we make them, 
we in a truer sense simply recognize them. How is 
it that our separate serial orders are always under- 
going reconstruction, and our histories of science, 
literature, art, philosophy, need ever to be rewritten, 
if it were not for the necessity of bringing our serial 
orders into closer conformity to the given order } 

Take the works of science, and let us ask ourselves 
what is their history } Is it not true that the great- 
est and most severe critic of science is just the given 
order } The conceptions of physics and chemistry 
have been recast within our own time. The old ter- 
minology has almost passed into abeyance, and the 
talk now is in terms of energy and evolution. The 



154 THEISM 

world of science presents another aspect at the 
end of this century from that which it ever had 
before. If it is the business of science to conceive 
simply and to foresee, then it fulfils that function 
more completely than before. Why } Because it 
tries to see the thing and its working as they are 
in the given order. It tries to see, as Clerk Max- 
well said in his youth, the " particular go " of the 
thing. There is a standard and a goal for science, 
and that standard would seem to be the recognition 
and the statement of the rationality of the given 
order. 

While this is true of the physical sciences, it is 
still more true of the sciences which deal with man. 
In those sciences, we have to deal not only with the 
immanent rationality of the world, which manifests 
itself as irreversible and irresistible order, but with 
the manifestations of finite intelligence which is on 
the way to realize itself. Histories of knowledge, 
ethics, philosophy, and religion deal, as one might 
say, with rationality in the making. The making of 
a finite rational being seems to be a long and costly 
work. Account is to be taken of the ultimate 
rationality of the world, and also of the tentative 
efforts of the finite being who has to make his own 
world. But we should never be able to make the 
worlds in which we dwell, in each of which there is a 
centre and circumference relative to the individual, 
if there were not in each of us a trust that in the 



THE MAKING OF MAN 1 55 

larger world, which includes the separate serial worlds, 
there is a rationality as much greater than ours as the 
real world is greater than our ideal worlds. 

Each of us is equal to the world which we have 
constructed for ourselves. Everything in that world 
is relative to the person who was active in the 
making of it. May we not suppose a rational 
inteUigence for which the world is, and to which all 
the simultaneous and successive changes may be 
present as really as the world of our experience is 
to ourselves ? May not the given order be the 
rational order after all, and our serial editions of it 
be simply attempts after something not yet seen by 
us .■* At all events the statement that the real is the 
rational is a proposition for which a good deal may 
be said. 

So we come back to our proposition that we must 
strive to rise to the thought of the wider and wider 
unities that meet us as we read the unfolding history 
of the world. We must try to think things together, 
and not merely in the separate serials presented to 
us for our easier reading. We must try to think 
things together, for they are together. Our serials 
may be useful and profitable reading, if we remember 
that they must be bound together and read together 
if we are to reach the goal. Even then they must 
be read only as approximations to the great reality. 
The great order of the world has made room for the 
order which a rational being constructs for himself 



1 56 THEISM 

within it; it would be strange if the rational being 
were to conclude that there was no reason in the 
world until he put it there. The response which 
the world makes to our intelligent efforts, the plas- 
ticity of the world under our remodelling hand, looks 
as if provision were made in the nature of things for 
the advent of such a being as man. At all events, 
it is true that a rational being has found a place in 
the system of things, and has room and freedom to 
work there. 

The race of rational beings has lived and worked 
here for a long time, and has left traces of them- 
selves and their work. They have transformed the 
place in which they have lived, have made for them- 
selves a home in it. The fruits of the earth have 
been modified to meet their wants, the plants have 
taken on new forms to gratify their taste and to feed 
and clothe them, the winds of heaven serve their 
pleasure, fire has become their servant, and the 
lightnings carry their messages. Cities have risen 
at their command, and, while they have subdued 
the earth to their purpose, they have themselves 
grown from more to more. They have worked on 
the same lines from the first to the last, only with an 
intelligence that has grown with the demand made 
on it. They have left the record of their hopes, 
fears, beliefs, aims, and purposes, and have enabled 
us to see how they looked on the heavens above, and 
the earth beneath ; what they thought of the past, 



THE MAKING OF MAN 157 

the present, and the future. We know how they 
regarded the great mystery of existence, and we 
can read their growing apprehension of the great- 
ness of the world in which they lived. Is it any 
wonder that we are constrained to think of them as 
a unity } 

Here, too, may come forth considerations similar 
to those which Professor James set forth in another 
connection. We may be told that we have no organ 
to grasp so large a unity. If we cannot grasp the 
contemporaneity, how shall we grasp the contem- 
poraneity and the succession, too.? And yet it 
must somehow be grasped, for we all recognize it 
as a fact. If we begin with any unity in which we 
may imagine ourselves to be placed, we shall find 
ourselves pushed in thought on and on till we are 
face to face with the whole race as they have existed 
in space and in time. Our thought refuses to be 
shut up in compartments. Begin where we stand 
with any individual now present, and from him we 
shall be thrust forth to the thought of this great 
city, and of all the complex relations which make up 
the history and the present constitution of this city. 
From the city we shall be driven in thought to the 
state, and to the great nation of which it forms an 
integral part. Then our thought will find no resting 
place until we think of the relations of this state to 
the other states of the world. You cannot write a 
history of the United States without a glance at the 



158 THEISM 

countries on the other side from which your fore- 
fathers came; you cannot explain your ethics, phi- 
losophy, religion, without regard to the rock whence 
you are hewn, and the ancestral traits you carried 
with you to your home here. No doubt you have 
also made your own contribution to the thought 
and life of men — a contribution which grows larger 
every day. 

The matter in hand is that you cannot begin 
anywhere without assuming in your thought the 
whole history of mankind. And you cannot con- 
tinue thinking to any purpose without the postulate 
of the larger unity of the human race which un- 
derlies all your thinking. It may not have come 
clearly before your consciousness, but as soon as it 
is pointed out, we all recognize that it has been 
the tacit assumption of all of us. So I am not to 
be debarred from the use of this unity of man by 
any difficulty which may be brought against my 
power adequately to conceive it. Difficulties as 
great, and, in the opinion of some, as insuperable, 
can be brought against the conception of any unity 
whatsoever. You have only to read "Appearance 
and Reality," by Mr. F. H. Bradley, to find as fine 
an assortment of difficulties as can be found in 
any place in the world. The difficulties are perplex- 
ing enough, whether you speak of time, or space, 
or self, or of anything else which you think as 
one. In this related world you can never take a 



THE MAKING OF MAN I 59 

thing out of its relations, for, as soon as you bring 
in the relations, it may be shown that you have 
broken up the unity. It may be shown that you 
have no right to speak of the weight of any par- 
ticular body, for when you do, you are simply 
speaking of a relation which this particular thing 
has to all the things which make up the universe. 
In fact, difficulties arise when we speak of any 
unity in which differences occur, and which is 
made up of differences. There is no greater in- 
herent difficulty in thinking of a unity made up of 
many differences, than there is in thinking of a 
unity made up of a few. 

It is quite true that thought cannot rest until 
it reaches a final unity in which all existence finds 
its place, which will, also, give to every difference a 
place and a function in the unity of all. Thought 
ever tends that way, and many have been the at- 
tempts made to find a unity of that kind. We are 
not yet ready for the consideration of these. We 
are familiarizing ourselves with the wider and 
wider unities which have met our view as we fol- 
lowed the history of the world set forth to us by 
science. We have come in man to a new kind of 
unity, which in many ways has transcended those 
we met before. Not merely an organic unity, nor 
a mechanical unity held together by pressure, but 
a unity of independent, self-guided, rational beings, 
held together by an inward motive, and bound by 



l6o THEISM 

bonds which are moral and spiritual. Constituted 
for each individual by descent, tradition, upbringing, 
education, family, and social intercourse, it has to 
be constituted anew by him of his own choice 
and rational desire. Into that union the individual 
has to bring himself with all that has been given 
him, and all that he has made himself to be; and 
he has to find himself, as he can find himself only, 
in the society. It is open to him to refuse to enter 
into the unity of humanity on the terms which 
alone can make the union beneficial to the society 
and to himself. He may in a short-sighted and 
irrational way refuse the wider outlook, disregard 
the limitations and restraints, which the good of 
the whole has laid on the individual ; he may look 
at all things from an individual standpoint; he may 
use the means provided by the labour of the gen- 
erations for what he thinks his own benefit, and 
the strength, skill, and power he owes to society 
may be turned against it: these considerations only 
show how difficult it is to constitute a rational 
unity out of individuals who are only partially 
rational, and have not become rational enough to 
know wherein their highest interests lie. 

At this point emerge other considerations on 
which we have not touched as yet. We have to con- 
sider the beliefs of humanity from a point of view 
which throws into relief another aspect of man. 
If the ideal of humanity is higher than we have 



THE MAKING OF MAN l6l 

yet seen, if we have to look at man as continu- 
ing in existence beyond this world of time, if we 
are to regard the members of the human race as 
living at this hour, somewhere, after they have 
passed from this life, clearly our conception of the 
unity of humanity receives a breadth unspeakably 
great. If we continue to live on, and if the other 
life is in connection with the present life, then the 
relation of the individual to the unity of humanity 
assumes a new form, and the bonds of union be- 
come still more spiritual than before. We feel at 
once that we are members of a larger whole, and 
the responsibility to the whole assumes a graver 
aspect. Whatever we do here has an eternal as- 
pect. We are ourselves transformed under the 
grander, deeper light, and our feelings, desires, 
aims, thoughts, have a deeper meaning, for we 
recognize that we are not the children of time. 

It may be asked whether at this stage we have 
not passed beyond rational grounds, and have 
brought to light hopes or fears which reason can- 
not verify. It has been contended that reason has 
to do only with the present world and the present 
life, and to go beyond these is to bring in what 
passes the bounds of verification. Precisely as it 
has been contended that reason has only to do 
with the interests of the individual, so it has been 
contended that it has to do only with the present 
life. Both these propositions have been advocated 



1 62 THEISM 

by Mr. Kidd in his work on " Social Evolution," and 
it seems right to look at his argument. Meanwhile, 
let us observe that even if we limit our view to the 
present life, and to the disclosures of history, it is 
clear that the bonds between the individual and 
society are of the most real and practical kind. 
We can discover these bonds, can discern these 
conditions; indeed, they have been discovered and 
set forth, so that he who runs may read. The rela- 
tions are as real as those set forth in physics, and 
the sanctions for social conduct are as real and 
as conspicuous as those which dictate a regard to 
the welfare of the individual. But it may be well 
to hear what Mr. Kidd has to say on the subject, 
and to discuss the matter with him at some length. 



VI 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 
Mr. benjamin KIDD AND Mr. ARTHUR 
BALFOUR 

It may be well to begin with a quotation from the 
work of Mr. Benjamin Kidd on " Social Evolution." 
That book has had a great vogue with us, and it 
seems also to have attracted attention on this side of 
the Atlantic. Its recognition of the part which re- 
ligion has in social evolution, its insistence on the 
altruistic character of social morality, and the coura- 
geous maintenance of the proposition that the hope of 
humanity lay in the development of religious feeling 
and of the conduct that springs therefrom, won the 
approval of all who felt the need of religious sanctions 
for the guidance of their own lives. They were so 
much entranced with the clear and emphatic insist- 
ence of the necessity of religion for man, that they 
forgot to ask whether a religion was possible on the 
terms and within the limits prescribed by Mr. Kidd. 
As I read the book and watched the reception given to 
it, I came to the conclusion that the Aufklarung was 
not yet dead. Here was a book with all the notes of 

163 



1 64 THEISM 

the Aufklarung, with the tendency of the Auf klarung 
to shut up nature and human nature into compart- 
ments, and to introduce discord and anarchy into 
the separate compartments, that placed religion and 
morality out of rational relation with one another, 
and pitted religion against rationality so far as to say 
that a rational religion is impossible ; and yet the book 
was praised beyond measure, and edition after edition 
was rapidly sold. 

I was reminded of Henry Thomas Buckle and 
his " History of Civilization." The two men and the 
two books were not unlike each other. They dealt 
largely with the same problem and they used the 
same method. It is true that the principle of prog- 
ress to which the advance of civilization is due is 
not the same, but in both the principle is one-sided, 
and in both it proceeds on the assumption of a radical 
contradiction in human nature. The principle of 
progress is with Mr. Buckle intellectual; with Mr. 
Kidd it is extra-rational. With Mr. Buckle religion, 
at least in its historical manifestations, is super- 
stitious, irrational, and a hindrance to progress ; with 
Mr. Kidd it is also extra-rational, irrational, but a 
help, indeed the only help to progress. Cultivate 
the intelligence, enlighten the mind, spread the light 
of knowledge everywhere, and the millennium is 
sure to come, so spoke the earlier prophet, as he pero- 
rated with such eloquence as he could command on 
the advance of the species, and contrasted the past 



IS A NATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 1 65 

with the present. The prophet of the present tells 
a different story. Enlightenment is not increasing, 
and it would not be good for the human race if it did 
increase. The human mind has not grown through- 
out the ages, for was not a Greek as intelligent as we 
are .-* There is no rational sanction for progress, for 
the secret of progress lies in the unintelligible and 
the irrational. Let us struggle to overcome our own 
reason, and let us subordinate it to the irrational, so 
shall we hasten the wheels of progress and advance 
civilization. 

Thus we have in both writers the essential princi- 
ple of the Aufklarung, — the splitting up of man into 
unrelated factors, the rupture of the unity of intelli- 
gence, the assumption that essential and related 
parts of human nature are in entire antagonism to 
one another ; and the consequence follows that they 
must brand that part they do not use, and cast it out 
as an intruder, and a disturber of the peace and prog- 
ress of humanity. It is quite an accident that Mr. 
Buckle regards religion as the intruder, and Mr. 
Kidd looks on reason, in his sense of the word, as the 
enemy ; for the positions might be reversed and the 
same result would follow. I for one protest against 
the breaking up of the mind into separate faculties 
that in the phraseology of some seem to act inde- 
pendently of one another, and against that assump- 
tion that the manifold of sense has to wait till it is 
gathered up into the unity of apperception ; and I 



1 66 THEISM 

protest, also, against the introduction into philosophy 
of phraseology which will prevent me from seeing 
that feeling, thinking, acting, is done by the whole 
being, and is not a series of unrelated processes con- 
ducted by abstractions. 

Let us, however, hear Mr. Kidd. " This orderly 
and beautiful world which we see around us is now, 
and always has been, the scene of incessant rivalry 
between all the forms of life inhabiting it — rivalry, 
too, not chiefly conducted between different species, 
but between members of the same species. The plants 
in the green-sward beneath our feet are engaged in 
silent rivalry with each other, a rivalry which if al- 
lowed to proceed without outside interference would 
know no pause until the weaker were exterminated. 
Every plant, organ, or quality of these plants which 
calls forth admiration for its beauty or perfection has 
its place and meaning in this struggle, and has been ac- 
quired to ensure success therein. The trees of the for- 
est which clothe and beautify the landscape are in a 
state of nature engaged in the same rivalry with each 
other. Left to themselves they fight out, as unmistaka- 
ble records have shown, a stubborn struggle extending 
over centuries in which at last only those forms most 
suitable to the conditions of the locality retain their 
places. But so far we view the rivalry under simple 
conditions ; it is amongst the forms of animal life as 
we begin to watch the gradual progress upwards to 
higher types that it becomes many sided and complex. 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 167 

It is at this point that we encounter a feature of 
the struggle which recent developments of biological 
science tend to bring into ever increasing prominence. 
The first necessity for every successful form engaged 
in this struggle is the capacity for reproduction be- 
yond the limits which the conditions of life for the 
time being comfortably provide for. The capacity 
for multiplying in this way is at first one of the princi- 
pal resources in the development upwards, and in the 
lower forms of life it is still almost the sole equip- 
ment. But as progress begins to be made, a deeper 
cause, the almost illimitable significance of which 
science is beginning to appreciate, requires that all 
the successful forms must multiply beyond the limits 
of comfortable existence. 

Recent biological researches, and more particularly 
the investigations and conclusions of Professor Weis- 
mann, have tended to greatly develop Darwin's orig- 
inal hypothesis as to the conditions under which 
progress has been made in the various forms of life. 
It is now coming to be recognized as a necessarily in- 
herent part of the doctrine of evolution that, if the 
continual selection which is always going on amongst 
the higher forms of life were to be suspended, these 
forms would not only possess no tendency to make 
progress ; they must actually go backwards. That 
is to sayy if all the individuals of every generation 
in any species were allowed to equally propagate 
their kind, the average of each generation would con- 



1 68 THEISM 

tinually tend to fall below the average of the genera- 
tion which preceded it, and a process of slow biit 
steady degeneration would ensued ("Social Evo- 
lution," pp. 38-9.) 

We have quoted at length, as the quotation sets 
forth one of the main elements of Mr. Kidd's argu- 
ment. At the outset we notice the stress he lays on 
struggle. Rivalry everywhere, cell against cell, part 
against part, organism against organism, species 
against species, and genus against genus. It is set 
forth in the most extreme and one-sided way, with 
utter blindness to the other side of the story. There 
is no word of that which made the so-called struggle 
possible, and no thought of the fact that every spe- 
cies is serviceable to every other. Nor is there any 
mention that the plant life must precede animal life, 
in order to lift matter to that chemical level at which 
it may become the vehicle of animal life. Nor is 
there any regard to the fact that the various species 
of animals depend on one another to a degree which 
passes calculation. The soil on which corn is grown 
has been worked over and over again, until it has 
attained that condition which makes it fit for the 
growing of corn. In truth, Mr. Kidd, following his 
masters, has isolated one set of phenomena, fixed his 
thought on it exclusively, until he has quite forgotten 
that, if there be a struggle, it is a struggle within one 
system. 

Nor has he observed that the higher the organism 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? l6g 

the less the fertility. On this Mr. Spencer has writ- 
ten much that is to the purpose, and has gone far 
to prove that there is a law of fertility. But then 
Mr. Spencer, though a thorough-going evolutionist, 
is, unlike Mr. Kidd, a disbeliever in the adequacy of 
natural selection. Mr. Kidd says grandly, " Amongst 
the higher forms it is an inevitable law not only 
that competition and selection must always accom- 
pany progress, but that they must prevail amongst 
every form of life which is not actually retrograd- 
ing. Every successful form must, of necessity, mul- 
tiply beyond the limits which the average conditions 
of life comfortably provide for. Other things being 
equal, indeed, the wider the limits of selection the 
keener the rivalry, and the more rigid the selection 
the greater will be the progress." (p. 41.) It is 
so easy to make general statements, and to speak 
of inevitable laws, and yet the greater part of Mr. 
Kidd's book is taken up with a proof that the suc- 
cess of humanity as a social system is due to the 
fact that men have somehow disregarded the stern 
competition and rivalry which he speaks of with 
so strong an emphasis. No wonder that he regards 
such conduct as irrational. But of this more in the 
sequel. 

We note further the adherence of Mr. Kidd to the 
opinion of Weismann. In his usual fashion he speaks 
of Weismann's view, as if it had been accepted by 
those who know. He might have told us which of 



I/O THEISM 

Weismann's views he holds by, for Weismann has set 
forth at least half a dozen different ones. But take 
the one Mr. Kidd has chosen, and on which he dilates 
at some length. It is scarcely possible to follow the 
reasoning of Weismann and the elaboration of that 
reasoning by Mr. Kidd. They make the strange sup- 
position of the cessation of natural selection. In one 
breath they tell us that this is the law of life and 
progress, and then calmly speak of its cessation, and 
seek to trace out its consequences. It seems to me 
that I could make the supposition of the cessation of 
gravitation, and on that supposition trace out a good 
many consequences of an inconvenient kind. Really 
they must make their choice. Natural selection is 
universal or it is not. It seems to me that it is uni- 
versal in the sense that there must be a correspond- 
ence between the organism and its environment. The 
fittest must survive whatever the fittest may be. The 
survival tests the fitness. To speak from the stand- 
point of evolution of " a process of slow but steady 
degeneration "is to go beyond the mark, and to bring 
in a standard not derived from evolution. 

The stress and strain of rivalry and competition 
may work for progress, or may work for degrada- 
tion. Change the environment of this place a few 
degrees, and lower it on the average until it became 
what it is in the Arctic regions, and the fittest would 
survive, but it would be a different kind of fitness. 
What we may call a degraded form would inevitably 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? I/I 

be the outcome of such a state of matters. It is 
noticeable that Mr. Kidd makes another assumption 
which he has not attempted to justify. He simply 
asserts it as indubitable. Assuming for the sake of 
examining his proposition on its merits, that the ces- 
sation of natural selection is possible, why does he 
assume that the result would be degeneration .? Un- 
derlying the assumption is the thought, never ex- 
pressed, but always understood, that variation would 
cease, or that the organism would vary only in one 
direction. How does this assumption agree with the 
hypothesis of indefinite variation } This is one of the 
points which have emerged in the controversy be- 
tween Weismann and Spencer, on which Spencer 
lays great stress, and to which Weismann has given 
no satisfactory answer. If, as Mr. Kidd says, ''the 
higher forms of life would tend to sink back again by 
a degenerative process through those stages of devel- 
opment by which they reached their present position," 
this could only be characterized from the standpoint of 
evolution as a case of the survival of the fittest. In 
truth, one gets a Httle tired of this kind of argument, 
and one wishes for a little consistency of thought and 
of adherence to one point of view for a time. Mr. 
Kidd cannot eat his cake and have it. If he is to use 
the language and to unfold the arguments of evolu- 
tion, he has no right to speak of degeneration, for 
that is to bring in another measure than that used by 
evolution. He can only speak of the survival of th^ 



1/2 THEISM 

fittest, and whatever survives is the fittest. Thus his 
talk about progress is swept away, as being beyond 
the sphere to which judgment is Umited by the 
premises. 

Greater wonders meet us as we follow on in the 
perusal of Mr. Kidd's book. He brings the laws 
of biology to the interpretation of human life ; he 
makes no discrimination between the more involved 
life to which he comes and the less involved fife he 
has previously studied, and we rather expect that 
he will soon get into difficulties. Even in the lower 
life he has refused to look at anything save rivalry, 
competition, and the struggle for existence. He has 
refused to look at the tenderness and devotion of a 
mother to her little ones, and there are such among 
animals. He has not noticed union and subordina- 
tion to their leader of a herd of grass-eaters, nor how 
they work together for their common advantage. 
These herds set sentinels to watch while others feed ; 
they obey the signal of their leaders. If there are 
struggle and suffering, there are among animals love, 
gentleness, care for their young, and the germs of 
many virtues which in flower and fruit are the glory 
of humanity. These have been omitted from Mr. 
Kidd's picture. 

Biology has to be widened and narrowed when 
we come to look at the being who has become ra- 
tional. In a sense, our author recognizes a differ- 
ence between rational and irrational beings. He 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 1 73 

carries with him, however, the idea that "no form 
can make any advance, or even retain its place with- 
out deterioration, except by carrying on the species 
to a greater extent from individuals above the aver- 
age than from those below it," and makes the prob- 
lem presented to the rational being to be, what shall 
his behaviour be under the onerous conditions of his 
existence. It is only fair to let him state his case : 
" Here at last was a creature who could reason about 
these things and who, when his conduct is observed, it 
may be noticed, actually does reason about them in this 
way. He is subject to the same natural conditions 
of existence as all the forms of life that have come 
before him ; he reproduces his kind as they do ; he 
lives and dies subject to the same physiological laws. 
To him, as to the others, the inexorable conditions 
of life render progress impossible in any other way 
than by carrying on his kind from successful varia- 
tions to the exclusion of others ; by being therefore 
subject to selection ; by consequently reproducing in 
numbers beyond those which the conditions of life 
for the time being comfortably allow for; and by 
living a life of constant rivalry and competition with 
his fellows with all the attendant results of stress and 
suffering to some, and failure to reach the full possi- 
bilities of life to large numbers. Nay, more, it is 
evident that his progress has become subject to these 
conditions in a more stringent and onerous form than 
has ever before prevailed in the world. For as he 



1 74 THEISM 

can reach his highest development only in society, 
the forces which are concerned in working out his 
evolution no longer operate upon him primarily as an 
individual, but as a member of society. His inter- 
ests as an individual have, in fact, become further 
subordinated to those of a social organism, with 
interests immensely wider and a life indefinitely 
longer than his own. How is the possession of 
reason ever to be rendered compatible with the will 
to submit to conditions of existence so onerous, re- 
quiring the effective and continual subordination of 
the individual's welfare to the progress of a develop- 
ment in which he can have no personal interest 
whatever." (pp. 68-9.) 

This is his statement of the problem, and we 
shall look at it as stated, or we may take it as set 
forth by himself in all the dignity of italics. " The 
interests of tJie social orgmiis^n and those of the in- 
dividuals comprising it at any particular time are 
actually antagonistic ; they can never be 7'eco7uiled ; 
they are inherently arid essentially irreconcilable ^ 
So we get the matter at last with all the breadth and 
absoluteness characteristic of the Aufklarung. The 
social organism becomes an abstraction on the one 
side, and the individuals comprising it become ab- 
stractions on the other, and the whole contents of 
both for the time are just this opposition which has 
also been abstracted from all else. Apparently the 
author has forgotten that if the individuals compris- 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 1 75 

ing the social organism disappear, the organism 
disappears also, and with the disappearance of 
the organism goes all that gave the individual his 
significance. It might just as reasonably be said 
that "the interest of the social organism and those 
of the individuals comprising it at any particular 
time can never be separated, they can never be 
antagonistic, they are inherently and essentially in- 
separable." As an axiom, ours is as good as his, and 
it has the advantage of being more consistent with 
the facts. 

Without the social organism the individual could 
not be, and certainly could not be what he is. Take 
him as he stands in New York to-day, and let the 
stress of competition be as great as you please, see 
how you have equipped the individual for his work. 
At his command you have placed the gift of com- 
mon speech which unites him with his fellows, and 
places at his service the immense tradition of the 
experience of men in all ages and climes. You have 
trained and educated him in your schools, and have 
placed at his service the trained intelligence of men 
and women who can help him in the task of unfold- 
ing his powers, and of enabling him to know the 
world in which he lives, and of making it realize his 
purposes. You place at his command the resources 
of all that the industry of former times has accumu- 
lated, all that the inventive power of all time has 
discovered, and as he grows up he has at his break- 



176 THEISM 

fast table the news of the world. It is really not 
necessary to multiply instances of the service which 
the social organism has done in the making of the 
individual. 

He is trained and fitted for his work by the social 
organism, and not merely intellectually ; he has had 
his affections drawn forth, his social qualities devel- 
oped in daily intercourse with his fellows, and his 
moral and religious nature has been strengthened 
by his place in, and by the part he has taken in, the 
moral and religious institutions in which he has been 
brought up. So far intellectually, morally, and reli- 
giously he has had the opportunity of making him- 
self, in interaction with his fellows in the social 
organism. It is not too much to say that to-day 
in your country and in ours, the resources of civili- 
zation place at the command of our workingmen 
opportunities which kings could not command a 
thousand years ago. But, says Mr. Kidd, the social 
organism lays on the individuals comprising it oner- 
ous burdens for which there is no rational sanc- 
tion. Yes, onerous burdens are laid on every man. 
It is the law of life that man must be a worker, and 
only in work can he realize himself. But that law 
does not lead us to the partial conclusion of Mr. 
Kidd. 

A rational sanction ! what does Mr. Kidd mean by 
the phrase and what does he mean by the word 
" reason " .-^ It is one of the puzzles of his book. We 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 177 

are surprised as we find that the only function 
ascribed by him to reason, is that it is a power 
which enables the individual to look after his own 
interest. It enabled him to overcome his competi- 
tors in the struggle for existence, and the possessor 
of reason subdued the irrational animals. It enabled 
him to discover that the onerous conditions of exist- 
ence still continued as they were before his advent. 
Still reason did not throw these off, for it was circum- 
vented by another set of instincts — shall we call 
them so } — which serve the social organism, and 
help man to subordinate his own reason. So in this 
artificial way Mr. Kidd tries to repair the rupture 
which he himself had made. Reason with him 
simply means reasoning, the power of breaking up, 
analyzing, of seeing separate particulars, and of 
dwelling on these exclusively. It can discover the 
onerous obligations of existence laid on the indi- 
vidual, and can see that these are irreconcilable with 
those of the social organism. He protests that ** the 
terms * reason ' and * rational ' are here, as every- 
where throughout this book, used in their ordinary 
or natural sense, and not in that transcendent sense 
in which metaphysicians toward the end of the last 
century set the fashion of using them." (p. 73.) 

Suppose we use the word in his sense, we have 
still to contend that he has unduly limited the scope 
of reason. For reason is able to recognize, not only 
the fact that it is under onerous obligations, as regards 

N 



I y^ THEISM 

the work the individual has to do ; it is, also, able to 
recognize all the conditions under which men exist 
on the earth, and to shape its course accordingly. It 
can recognize that the individual is no mere indi- 
vidual, and that when he endeavours to separate 
his own interests from those of the social organism, 
he is acting irrationally. To limit reason as Mr. 
Kidd has done, is to set down a limit that does not 
exist, save in his own imagination. For man is set 
here under a number of conditions, in a certain 
number of relations, and he has to know, as far as 
he can, these conditions and relations. Through 
these he has to realize himself, live his life, and do 
his work. It is the business of reason to ascer- 
tain all these conditions and relations, and not merely 
some of them. The relations that bind him to 
society are real and rational relations, and the ob- 
servance of them are for the interest of the indi- 
vidual. So on his own ground we say again to 
Mr. Kidd that to regard the interests of the society 
and the individual as irreconcilable is an irrational 
proceeding. 

In truth, according to Mr. Kidd, we are in a world 
that is fundamentally and utterly irrational. There 
is no rational sanction for the conditions of exist- 
ence necessarily existing, there is no possibility of a 
rational religion, and the universe is one in which 
irrational procedure seems to be the rule. Yet 
science has gone to work on the supposition that 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 179 

the world was intelligible, and found that it was so. 
And men have lived and acted on the assumption 
that things have a law, and a meaning, if they could 
find that law and meaning, and they thought they 
had found both in some measure; but here comes 
Mr. Kidd with the discovery that in the highest of 
all the phenomena in the world the conditions of 
existence have no rational sanction. It is very 
wonderful, and it has been discovered by the reason 
of Mr. Kidd. It must have been a sad thing to 
find out that reason is without kith or kin in this 
wide universe, and that this soHtary endowment is 
unable to bring the conditions of existence into 
harmony with itself, or itself with them. At this 
stage it might have occurred to Mr. Kidd to retrace 
his steps, and to try to find out whether this contra- 
riety in the very centre of life did exist. He might 
have asked whether his abstraction of the individual 
from the social organism had not been carried to an 
extreme. 

It is easy to make abstractions, easy to split up 
the individual into faculties, and to place one mode 
of the action of a being into irreconcilable contra- 
diction with another, if we lose sight of the unity 
which really conditions all the actions of every 
creature. But on the whole we may say that that 
mode of procedure has been overdone. We may 
say, also, that it has been overdone in the more 
recent study of the relations of the individual and 



l8o THEISM 

society. It does not work to sink the individual 
in the social organism, or to do the reverse. The 
individual can only realize himself in the organism, 
and the organism suffers when the individual is kept 
from realizing his ideal. Reason has a higher work 
than that assigned to it by Mr. Kidd. It has to 
seek to know all the relations in which rational 
beings stand to one another in the social organism ; 
the relations also in which they all stand to the 
world beneath them, and to what is above them all, 
and to define the rational constitution of the world 
in view of all these relations as a rational system, at 
least as a system that can be thought. For any indi- 
vidual to look merely at himself, at his work, at the 
conditions under which he does his work, to disregard 
all other interests save those which seem to belong 
to the individual for the moment, is possible for an 
individual, but only if he disregards the wider unity 
which alone can render his life and work fruitful. 
To speak of reason as if it meant an instrument only 
for the advantage of the individual, or as if it could 
not discern any other or wider bond, is to degrade 
the name and to do violence to the ordinary use 
of language. Reason is eminently social, and can 
make use of society for its own growth and further 
realization. Instead of limiting reason to the func- 
tion to which it is reduced by Mr. Kidd, it would be 
more consonant to fact to widen its use and to make 
it coterminous with all the activity of a rational 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? i8l 

being. Looking at the rational being, we see the 
coming of the time when all the feelings, emotions, 
desires, all the knowledge, and all the voluntary- 
activity of the rational being will be suffused with 
reason, and all will move in harmony with the ideal 
set forth by reason as the goal to be reached by each 
and all. 

As Mr. Kidd has unduly limited the use of reason, 
and made it only an instrument for the benefit of the 
individual, so he has also unduly narrowed the sphere 
of religion. He has recognized in a very vivid way 
the influence of religion in the progress of man, and 
he has set it forth in such a way as to call attention 
to it, when it was rather neglected by writers on 
evolution. It was looked at as altogether supersti- 
tious, as injurious, and as a hindrance to the progress 
of civilization. But Mr. Kidd is emphatic in his 
statement of its power and its worth as the instru- 
ment of social progress. But he seems to us to leave 
out of the conception many elements which are nec- 
essary to the very idea of a religion. Here is his 
definition : A religion is a form of belief, providing 
an tdtra-rational sanction for that large class of con- 
duct in the individual where his interests and the 
interests of the social organism are antagonistic, and 
by which the former are rendered subordinate to the 
latter in the general interests of the evolution which 
the race is undergoing, (p. 112.) 

This is a description of religion simply by one of 



1 82 THEISM 

its effects. It tells us nothing of religion as a belief 
in a power higher than ourselves on whom we feel our 
dependence, nothing of the necessity for fellowship 
with that power, nothing of what seems to disturb that 
fellowship, and of how it is to be restored, nor does 
it say anything of the commandments of the power. 
Every religion that has appeared among men has had 
its beliefs, its commands, and its consolations. These, 
however, do not appear in the definition of Mr. Kidd. 
His definition seems to have been prescribed by the 
necessities of his system. He had found that there 
was no rational sanction for progress, he must there- 
fore provide an irrational sanction, for the existence 
of progress is a fact. Religion is the instrument by 
which the blank is supplied. Our contention is that 
religion could not accomplish the task he assigns to 
it, if it did not accomplish a great deal more. It has 
the power he assigns to it, it does give us an ideal 
of unselfish living and working, but it does not limit 
itself to that. 

Indeed, the first work of an adequate rehgion is to 
restore the synthesis which Mr. Kidd has arbitrarily 
ruptured and cannot get together again. One of its 
chief ethical commands is, " Love thy neighbour as 
thyself." That is to say, that for religion the self- 
regarding virtues are not unimportant. It is as much 
interested in those things that make for the true in- 
terests of the self, as it is in those that make for the 
interests of the social organism. It does not subor- 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 183 

dinate individuals to the race, and it does not hesitate 
to say, " What shall it profit a man though he should 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " The 
highest form of religion known to man is distinctive 
in this respect, and is clearly distinguished from 
other rehgions in the stress it lays on the value and 
the worth of the individual, on the necessity of devel- 
oping the individual to the height of the ideal which 
he only can realize, and on that distinct peculiarity 
which makes every person almost a type by himself. 
Religion is the greatest power in the universe for the 
making of the individual, for the insistence on every 
help which can tend to develop the distinctive per- 
sonality of each ; in fact, there is no power known to 
man that works so much to develop the personality 
of the individual as religion. This fact is altogether 
lost sight of by Mr. Kidd. 

Religion does not work by setting the interests of 
the individual against those of the race. Ye are mem- 
bers one of another. In fact, religion was first in the 
field, before science, before philosophy came to being ; 
and it had made in its own way that synthesis which 
science and philosophy have not yet made, after ages 
of toil. Somehow it grasped the whole in its whole- 
ness, raised men up beyond the limited and the 
imperfect, outran its own powers of thinking, and 
gave to man such a sense of his own worth, and of 
the worth of others, as even in the imperfect forms, it 
had long ago, made man somewhat of an ideal being. 



1 84 THEISM 

Religion has no such limited function as that pre- 
scribed to it by Mr. Kidd. It is not an instrument in 
the general interests of the evolution which the race 
is undergoing. It is something greater than that. It 
is in the interest of the individual quite as much. 

In a page, previous to his treatment of religion, Mr. 
Kidd, in a simple and artless manner, says, " We are 
speaking, it must be remembered, of a rational sanc- 
tion, and reason has, in an examination of this kind, 
nothing to do with any existence but the present, 
which it insists it is our duty to ourselves to make the 
most of." (pp. 72-3.) We need not be surprised that 
he says later, " No form of belief is capable of func- 
tioning as a religion in the evolution of society which 
does not provide an ultra-rational sanction for social 
conduct in the individual. In other words, a rational 
religion is a scientific impossibility, representing from 
the nature of the case an inherent contradiction of 
terms." (pp. 109-110.) It seems a very sad result 
for the rational being. He seems shut up to the di- 
lemma, either to lose his rationality or to cease to be 
religious. If he follows our author, he must choose 
the horn of the dilemma on which he is to be impaled. 
He was wont to think that a belief in God and im- 
mortality was a belief which was justifiable on rational 
grounds. May we humbly ask why a form of belief 
which provides a rational sanction for social conduct in 
the individual may not be capable of functioning as a 
religion in the evolution of society t I express my own 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 185 

conviction that if Mr. Kidd is right in calling " a ra- 
tional religion a scientific impossibility," we shall soon 
see an end of religion altogether. For it is a necessity 
of the rational being to bring his beliefs into some kind 
of order, and to justify them to himself; and if you shut 
him out from that hope, you will drive him to despair. 
After reading passages like these, — and they 
abound in the pages of Mr. Kidd's book, — we might 
expect something like a demonstration of the funda- 
mental irrationality of religion. A statement, at least, 
of its opposition to the interests of the individual might 
be expected. As we read, we find that, whatever re- 
ligion may be in itself, and whatever be the nature of 
its sanction, its results are intelligible, and can be 
stated with precision. At first we start, led by Mr. 
Kidd, with the notion that religion is a method of 
subordinating the individual and his interests to the 
interests of the social organism. We read on and we 
find that the scene is changed, and another attitude 
presents itself. The social organism is in the service 
of the individual. The social organism somehow 
labours not in its own interest; it works in order 
that all the people may be brought into the rivalry 
of life on equal conditions. If this be so, then all we 
need to do is to make this plain to the intelligence 
of man, the individual; and we shall immediately have 
a rational sanction for progress, and religion may 
also be regarded as rational. Lest we should be 
thought guilty of unfairness to Mr. Kidd, we quote 



1 86 THEISM 

the following : " Now the prevailing impression con- 
cerning this process of evolution is that it has been 
the product of an intellectual movement, and that 
it has been the ever increasing intelligence and en- 
lightenment of the people, which has constituted the 
principal propelling force. It would appear, how- 
ever, that we must reject this view. From the nature 
of the case, as we shall see more clearly later on, the 
intellect could not have supplied any force sufficiently 
powerful to have enabled the people to have success- 
fully assailed the almost impregnable position of the 
power-holding classes. So enormous has been the 
resistance to be overcome, and so complete has been 
the failure of the people in similar circumstances out- 
side our civilization, that we must look elsewhere for 
the cause which has produced the transformation. 
The motive force we must apparently find in the 
immense fund of altruistic feeling with which our 
Western societies have become equipped ; this being, 
with the extraordinarily effective sanctions behind it, 
the characteristic and determinative product of the re- 
ligious system upon which our civilization is founded. 
// is the influence of this fund of altruism in our civ- 
ilization that has undermined the position of the 
power-holding classes. It is the resulting deepening 
and softening of character amongst us which alone 
has made possible that developmental movement 
whereby all the people are being slowly brought into 
the rivalry of life on equal conditions." (p. 177.) 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 187 

Surely when the average man sees that people are 
brought into the rivalry of life on equal conditions, 
and that by the effort of the social organism, he will 
cease to believe that there are no rational sanctions 
for progress, and will cease to think, if he ever did 
think, that his interests and the interests of the 
social organism are irreconcilable. It is a curious re- 
sult that even Mr. Kidd should show how interests, 
said by him to be irreconcilable, work together for 
mutual advantage. We notice, in passing, a curi- 
ous instance of Mr. Kidd's way of taking aspects 
for realities, and of making abstractions do the work 
which abstract notions can never do. Note how he 
speaks : " The intellect could not have supplied any 
force sufficiently powerful," and so on. An abstract 
intellect could not supply any force to anything, but 
neither could abstract feeling do it. No great move- 
ment, and no movement however insignificant, could 
be motived apart from the intellect, feeling, or the 
conations of men. To speak of a fund of altruistic 
feeling, as if it stood by itself, and flowed on without 
touching the intelligence and the will, is, with all 
respect, to speak psychological nonsense. But this 
is Mr. Kidd's way. While we are grateful to him 
for the service he has done in the emphasis he has 
laid on the power of religion in evolution, we accept 
that result with the qualification that religion is a 
reasonable service. 

It may be useful here to make a few remarks on 



1 88 THEISM 

Mr. Arthur Balfour's book — "The Foundations of 
Belief," as it is largely on the same lines as the book 
of Mr. Kidd. They agree in using the word "reason" 
in the same sense as simply reasoning, and they simi- 
larly lay stress on the irrational character of human 
beliefs. Mr. Balfour professes to deal with the 
foundations of belief. He seeks to ascertain the 
causes and the genesis of belief. For this end he 
dwells on the impressions made on us, on effects 
wrought on us, on beliefs effected in us by causes 
which are non-rational in .themselves, and he has 
many wise things in his book in this connection. 
After the questions of the origin and growth of our 
beliefs have been discussed a more important ques- 
tion emerges, What are our beliefs worth and are they 
valid } and this is scarcely discussed by Mr. Balfour. 
Mr. Balfour approaches the question under the influ- 
ence of the traditional philosophy, and has not, even 
though he has recognized that there is a difference 
between the existence of a belief and its validity, 
dealt with the necessity of a criterion of belief. He 
has shown us- no way of discriminating between be- 
liefs which are valid, trustworthy, related to reality, 
and those which are baseless, irrational, and degrad- 
ing. As far as psychology is concerned one belief 
is as good as another ; when its nature, its genesis, 
are ascertained, the work of psychology is done. 
English psychology always maintained the validity 
of the original element of mind, or the original 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 189 

beliefs, as Stuart Mill called them. To find what 
these were, it was customary to refer to that baby 
which has appeared so frequently in treatises of 
English psychology, it is fashionable now to refer to 
the primitive man. It has been an irrelevant proced- 
ure from first to last, for if the genesis of every belief 
could be traced so that we could refer every one to 
its adequate cause, we should still have no criterion 
to distinguish between beliefs as true or false. The 
truth or falsehood of a belief is not to be determined 
by a consideration of its origin, but by an examina- 
tion of its contents, and the grounds offered for its 
acceptance. From a rational point of view a belief 
must be self-evident, or it must be proven, or at least 
its truth must appear probable. Either in itself or 
in its relation to other beliefs, a belief must have 
reasons which warrant its acceptance. 

One objection to be taken to Mr. Balfour's argu- 
ment is that he speaks of our beliefs as if they were 
mere effects wrought in us by non-rational causes. 
The assumption of the passivity of the mind is car- 
ried through consistently. He never looks at the 
possibility of the mind having a say in the matter. 
Our beliefs are wrought in us we know not how, and 
no account is taken of the nature and activity of the 
mind. No mental experience is a mere effect, the 
stimulus is reacted against in a way characteristic 
not of the stimulus but of the mind. But this is 
now so commonplace that it need not be dwelt on. 



190 THEISM 

Nor does it seem necessary to speak of the conten- 
tion that our beliefs are due to non-rational causes. 
For be the character of the causes what it may, the 
beliefs are beliefs of a being who is, at least, im- 
plicitly rational, and every experience of his is impHc- 
itly rational. On this I do not dwell. 

Only one thing in "The Foundations of Belief" do 
I refer to, and I refer to it because it, also, was a fa- 
vourite antithesis of the Auf klarung. " Authority and 
Reason" is the title of the chapter and of the antith- 
esis in Mr. Balfour's book. "The source of error 
which has next to be noted presents points of much 
greater interest. Though it be true, as I am contend- 
ing, that the importance of reason among the causes 
which produce and maintain the beliefs, customs, and 
ideals which form the groundwork of life has been 
much exaggerated, there can yet be no doubt that 
reason is, or appears to be, the cause over which we 
have the most direct control, or rather the one which 
we most readily identify with our own free and per- 
sonal action. We are acted on by authority. It 
moulds our ways of thought in spite of ourselves, 
and usually unknown to ourselves. But when we 
reason, we are the authors of the effect produced. 
We have ourselves set the machine in motion. For 
its proper working we are ourselves immediately re- 
sponsible ; so that it is both natural and desirable 
that we should concentrate our attention on this par- 
ticular class of causes, even though we should thus 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 191 

be led unduly to magnify their importance in the 
general scheme of things." ("The Foundations of 
Belief," p. 203.) 

This is part of the general contrast between au- 
thority and reason drawn by Mr. Balfour, in which the 
opposition between the two is exaggerated, and their 
relations to one another obscured. One statement 
is worthy of notice. It is this, "When we reason, 
we are the authors of the effect produced." We are 
no more the authors of the effects produced by rea- 
soning than we are the authors of our experience 
generally, or rather we are just as much the authors 
of the one as of the other. Our experience is in one 
sense given, in another it is constructed by our own 
activity. So when we reason, we construct our argu- 
ment, arrange the steps of it, and seek to set forth 
the truth of the matter in hand ; but we are not the 
authors of the premises or the conclusion, if these 
are to have an objective reference. The worth of 
the argument must be determined by some objective 
standard. In all its experiences the mind is as active 
as it is in reasoning. What we lay stress on is the 
opposition which our author supposes to exist be- 
tween authority and reason. We insist on it because 
it is an illustration of the prevalence of that mis- 
chievous habit of the Aufklarung, which we saw 
prevailing so greatly in the reasoning of Mr. Kidd. 
Here is the same thing in Mr. Balfour, and we may 
find it elsewhere. "When we turn, however, from 



192 THEISM 

the conscious work of Reason to that which is un- 
consciously performed for us by Authority, a very 
different spectacle arrests our attention. The effects 
of the first, prominent as they are through the dignity 
of their origin, are trifling compared with the all-per- 
vading influences which flow from the second. At 
every moment of our lives, as individuals, as members 
of a family, of a party, of a nation, of a Church, of 
a universal brotherhood, the silent, continuous, un- 
noticed influence of Authority moulds our feelings, 
our aspirations, and, what we are more immediately 
concerned with, our beliefs. It is from Authority that 
Reason itself draws its most important premises." 
(pp. 227-28.) The last sentence may be turned 
round, and it would thus lose none of its impressive- 
ness or its truth. It is from reason that authority 
draws its most important premises. For all the in- 
stitutions to which reference was made as influen- 
tial in moulding our beliefs are institutions formed 
by rational beings acting in concert with one another. 
Families, parties, nations, churches, brotherhoods, are 
themselves rational institutions, and are the work of 
rational creatures who were conscious of the bonds 
which helped them to make themselves into a unity. 
Every one of these organizations is constituted by 
the efforts of the rational beings who realized them, 
and any influence they exert on the individual is 
really due to reason. We fearlessly assert that every 
instance of the action of authority as opposed to rea- 



IS A RATIONAL RELIGION POSSIBLE? 1 93 

son, set forth by Mr. Balfour, may be turned round 
and easily read as an instance of the influence of 
reason. We might take the case of language and by 
it illustrate the contention of Mr. Balfour. 

Language moulds our feelings, emotions, desires, 
aspirations, beliefs, even our thoughts. Whatever 
he has said of authority may be said a fortiori on 
behalf of language. We are always under its influ- 
ence; without its aid we could neither think ade- 
quately nor express our thought nor convey our 
thought to another. If we were to contrast lan- 
guage and reason as he has contrasted authority 
and reason, we could make a pretty effective contrast 
indeed. But then we should be at once told that 
we were engaged in an idle and unprofitable task, 
for language is itself the product of reason, and 
its influence is the influence of reason. That is our 
answer to Mr. Balfour; his antithesis between au- 
thority and reason is misleading, and it is irrelevant. 
The institutions which mould our lives, actions, and 
thoughts are themselves rational institutions, the prod- 
ucts of that reason against which they are pitted by 
Mr. Balfour. Before he could make good the antithe- 
sis between reason and authority, he must do some 
work on both notions, he must first eliminate every- 
thing rational from the institutions he has named, 
and everything authoritative from reason, and when 
he has reduced the one to irrationality, and de- 
prived the other of authority, then he may run the 



194 THEISM 

antithesis as he pleases, and it will not be worth 
much. 

There are elements in Mr. Balfour's book worthy 
of high praise, and there are conclusions with which 
I heartily agree, but to dwell on these at present is 
not my purpose. I found the argument of Mr. Kidd 
lying athwart my course, and I could not proceed 
until I got it out of my way. Mr. Balfour's work 
is so far coincident with that of Mr. Kidd ; his an- 
tithesis between authority and reason is on all fours 
with the paradoxes of Mr. Kidd; and so far I have 
dealt with both. Perhaps the method common to 
both is even worse than the results to which they 
come. For the habit of setting part against part, 
and of straining the relation in which two or more 
elements in a larger unity stand to one another, until 
nothing but a relation of contradiction is left, is so 
fatal to all fruitful thinking, that I did not think 
the time wasted to show its falsity in the particular 
instances we have examined. 



VII 



PERSONALITY: ITS CHARACTER AND ITS 
MEANING 

We have read the story which science has un- 
folded to us, and the wonder of the story has grown. 
We have come to see that the unity has grown 
greater and more complex, and the diversity tends 
ever more to unity. We have come to a unity 
greater than we can grasp. Not a fixed, static, 
unchanging unity, but one that grows, develops, 
becomes more and more, and yet maintains itself. 
Thus we came to the great organism of humanity — 
an organism made up of organisms, relatively inde- 
pendent of one another, but held together not by 
visible or physical bonds, but by bonds of another 
kind but not the less real. A unity made up of liv- 
ing unities, each of which is so far a self-contained 
whole, calls on us to widen our conceptions if we 
are to grasp the reality. Unities conscious of them- 
selves, self-moved, self -guided, self -trained, in a meas- 
ure, and held to the whole by bonds which can at 
any moment be broken ; the thought of a unity com- 
posed of such makes us acquainted with a kind of 
force or power unknown before. So varied are the 

195 



196 THEISM 

bonds that hold the social order together, that every 
one of them in turn has been looked at as a relation 
of opposition to the others. Self-interest was re- 
garded as irreconcilable with the universal interest, 
authority was pitted against reason, intelHgence 
against belief, and yet no one of these could be dis- 
pensed with if the social organism were to hold 
together and to make progress. Reason and author- 
ity are needed, self-interest is as necessary as the 
interest of the whole, science is needed as much as 
religion, and religion as much as science ; in fact, 
without any of these qualities and acquirements of 
humanity, which men are so prone to place in ir- 
reconcilable opposition, the social organism could 
not exist, at least could not exist in its well being. 
So out of the life of the social organism in its relations 
to its members and its environment have arisen 
the sciences, arts, intellectual, ethical, and rehgious 
systems, in action among us to-day, the histories of 
which make up so much of the recorded thoughts 
of men. As we look at these thoughts and systems 
we see them living, moving, growing, ever approxi- 
mating to an ideal, which is partly given and partly 
won by patient thought and work. The conviction 
deepens with the ages that there is a thought greater 
than our thought, a system larger than we can yet 
grasp, and an ideal formed for man and not merely 
by man. 

Up to the present, we have looked at the world 



PERSONALITY 1 97 

disclosed to us and unveiled to us by science merely 
as it unfolded itself to us, as it would appear to a 
spectator gazing at it from without. We looked at it 
mainly for the purpose of learning what the story of 
the world would disclose to us of the intelligence and 
purpose at work in it. We have found intelligence, 
purpose, life, at work in the world, and all on a scale 
almost passing our comprehension. But now the 
question rises, What do we really know of intelligence, 
purpose, life ? We know of many works of intelli- 
gence, and of many kinds of life. We know that 
an intelHgent system may be impressed on a system 
of mechanical causes, and these may be constrained 
to work out a purpose. Watches, clocks, electric 
machines, steam-engines, and all machines made by 
men are intelligible systems in which mechanical 
causes work out a purpose according to the design 
of the v/orker. Looking as a spectator we saw an- 
other kind of mechanism, a mechanism in which the 
skill of the designer was within the mechanism, and 
the purpose was wrought out not by impressing a 
plan on alien material, but by an immanent move- 
ment from within. The skill of the designer was 
within the organism, and the process was by growth. 
An organism we saw was greater than a mechanism. 
Still we learned that there were organisms and 
organisms. Growth was common to them all, but 
some grew, not knowing the aim and purpose of 
their growth, impelled onwards by impulses of which 



198 THEISM 

they were unconscious, drawn by desires which ruled 
them, and which they did not rule. 

In the unfolding of life we came to the advent of 
a being who to a certain extent knew himself and 
his purpose, who could reach his purpose and attain 
his ends by bending the environment to his purpose. 
This being could form a purpose and invent means 
for its realization. Can we obtain a nearer view of 
the life, which we saw to be manifested in the 
sciences, philosophies, and religions of the world.? 
It was the most wonderful of the wonderful things 
of the world disclosed to us by science, and we natu- 
rally desire to know it more intimately. For our 
conception of the life at work in the world must be 
largely determined by the knowledge we may attain 
of the life at work in the being who has made the 
sciences. Can we look at that being, not merely as 
spectators of his work and of his way of doing it, 
but can we get inside, and see him in the inward 
working of his very nature, and watch himself and 
his purposes in the making t 

Happily we are at home in this world, too. We 
are ourselves, and we are able to look at ourselves 
from within, and are able to look at the other side 
of the world, which from one side has engaged our 
attention so long. The world has a subjective side, 
and we look at it now from that point of view. 
Here we may well begin with Hume, who has set 
the problems which since his time are the main 



PERSONALITY I99 

problems of psychology, ethics, and metaphysics. 
" For my part, when I enter most intimately into 
what I call myself ^ I always stumble on some par- 
ticular perception or other of heat or cold, light or 
shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can 
catch myself at any time without a perception, and 
never can observe anything but the perception. 
When my perceptions are removed for any time, as 
by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of 7nyself and 
may truly be said not to exist. And were all my per- 
ceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, 
nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolu- 
tion of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor 
do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a 
perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and un- 
prejudiced reflection, thinks he has a different notion 
of himself I must confess I can reason no longer 
with him. All I can allow him is that he may be 
in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially 
different in this particular. He may, perhaps, per- 
ceive something simple and continued which he calls 
himself though I am certain there is no such prin- 
ciple in me. But setting aside some metaphysicians 
of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of 
mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or col- 
lection of different perceptions, which succeed each 
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a 
perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot 
turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. 



2CX) THEISM 

Our thought is still more variable than our sight; 
and all our other senses and faculties contribute to 
this change ; nor is there any single power of the 
soul which remains unalterably the same, perhaps 
for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, 
where several perceptions successively make their 
appearance ; pass, repass, ghde away, and min- 
gle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. 
There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor 
identity in different ; whatever natural propensity 
we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity, 
the comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. 
They are the successive perceptions only, that con- 
stitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant 
notion of the place where these scenes are repre- 
sented, nor of the material of which it is composed." 
Thus spoke Hume in his chapter on "Personal 
Identity" in his "Treatise on Human Nature," Part 
IV., Sect. VI. Again he says: " It is evident that the 
identity which we attribute to the human mind, how- 
ever perfect we may imagine it to be, is not able to run 
the several different perceptions into one, and make 
them lose their characters of distinction and differ- 
ence, which are essential to them. It is still true that 
every distinct perception which enters into the com- 
position of the mind is a distinct existence, and is 
different and distinguishable and separable from every 
other perception, either contemporary or successive." 
And one more sentence, " What we call mind is 



PERSONALITY 201 

nothing but a heap or bundle or collection of dif- 
ferent perceptions united together by certain rela- 
tions, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed 
with a certain simplicity and identity." 

The questions thus stated by Hume and the an- 
swers to them have appeared in almost all treatises 
on psychology which have been written since his 
time. His answers have in the main been the an- 
swers of the English school of psychology, and they 
are found almost in their naked simplicity in the 
works of the two Mills, in Bain, Huxley, and Spen- 
cer. He has also set the problem of the self for psy- 
chologists generally, and they toil at the problem 
in your country and in ours. One may read the in- 
cisive discussion of the problem in James's " Psychol- 
ogy," and in the able discussions of Dr. Ward, and 
in many others. I take from the discussions simply 
what I need. 

The introspective glance cast by Hume into his 
own mind and its working is graphically described. 
** The mind is a kind of theatre where several per- 
ceptions successively make their appearance, pass, 
repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety 
of postures and situations." True, we are satisfied 
for a time, and then we ask, What is the theatre, and 
for whom is the show } Hume rather anticipates the 
question, for he warns us that " the comparison of a 
theatre must not mislead us," and then goes on to say 
they are " the successive perceptions only that con- 



202 THEISM 

stitute the mind. " Having made use of the theatre 
and suggested a possible spectator, the theatre and 
the spectator are at once withdrawn, while the sug- 
gestion of them remains. As we continue to think 
of the matter, we come to the conclusion that we are 
in the presence of a unique kind of thing, which seems 
be at the same time knower and known, actor and 
spectator, a show and the spectator for whom the 
show is. The spectator and the gliding perceptions 
attracted our attention, and played the part of 
occupying our thought, until we forgot to ask the 
important question of the person who is aware of the 
movements of the gliding sensations. Then we found 
that Hume had left out one-half of the whole busi- 
ness, and that the half without the action of which 
there would have been no report. 

The gliding perceptions come and go, but not 
unobserved or forgotten. They are not separate, 
unrelated, or unreferred. They are present to a con- 
sciousness which is also present to them. Hume's 
spectator is a convenient person in psychology, and 
fulfils a useful function. As a fact, he is brought in 
now and then, when some such functionary is indis- 
pensable. All of us postulate him at some point or 
other, and we usually fancy vv^e are looking on from 
without at the consciousness of somebody else. As 
a matter of fact, the only consciousness I can ever 
hope to know is my own. I can interrogate my 
own consciousness ; I can compare it with what others 



PERSONALITY 203 

tell me is within their consciousness, but really my 
perceptions are mine ; I am the only being aware of 
them : their gliding, passing, and repassing are for me 
alone, and apart from my recognition of them they 
are unrecognized. 

We have thus to amend Hume's description, and 
say the mind is a theatre in which it is itself actor 
and spectator, and the perceptions do not constitute 
the mind, for they are not even perceptions until 
they are referred to the mind. To put it in more 
modern phrase, there is not only a series of states of 
consciousness, there is also a consciousness of these 
states, and this last is the element neglected by 
Hume and by his successors. It is quite true that we 
can never interview a blank self, or stand face to face 
with a consciousness devoid of contents ; true, also, 
that the mind is always found in a particular state of 
consciousness, but it is equally true that it is found in 
every state, and it is distinct from any state, for it is 
the condition of the existence and recognition of them 
all. We are not to look for the mind as if it were a 
thing among other things, a sensation among sensa- 
tions, or a perception among perceptions, or as the 
sum of a series of sensations, rather we are to look 
for mind as the universal condition of the possibility 
of all experience. As H off ding says : " Conscious 
life has three characteristics : (i) change and con- 
trast as condition of the individual elements entering 
consciousness ; (2) preservation or reproduction of 



204 THEISM 

previously given elements, together with connection 
between these and the new element; (3) the inner 
unity of recognition." 

There is the series and the awareness of the 
series, and neither of the two can be neglected in 
any adequate account of consciousness. Presenta- 
tion, preservation, recognition, and the combination 
of them all into the unity of experience — this is 
the fact which must be accepted, and cannot be 
explained. The toil imposed on the followers of 
Hume by their attempt to build something, which 
might pass for mind, out of the separate elements of 
the series of states of consciousness casts the labours 
of Sisyphus altogether into the shade. To make 
ropes out of sand is an easy task in comparison. 
When Mr. Spencer reduces the beginnings of ex- 
perience to nervous shocks, and endeavours to build 
up experience out of these, he appears to succeed, 
because he brings in surreptitiously the idea of unity 
of the nervous organism, which speedily becomes 
transformed into a unity of consciousness. In truth, 
the unity has been present in the shocks all along, 
only Mr. Spencer kept it hidden until he needed it, 
and brought it out at a certain stage, when it could 
no longer be kept back, and he made it appear as a 
newly manufactured article. 

In fact, the two are inseparable, though we seem 
to attend only to one of them at a time. Conscious- 
ness may be fully occupied with the object on which 



PERSONALITY 205 

attention is concentrated, and that to the exclusion of 
the thought of itself. I watched the helmsman on 
the great ship on which I once crossed the Atlantic. 
He had enough to do, for there w^as a considerable 
storm on hand. I saw him watch the waves with his 
hand on the helm, I saw the tension of his arms, the 
firm planting of the foot, the swaying of the body, 
and the tug of war as the helm met the waves, and 
all the time there was no recognition of the self as 
the centre to which all the coordinated movements of 
mind and body were referred. To me, the onlooker, 
what was visible were the skilful watching of the 
ever varying movements of wind, water, and ship, 
the skilful adaptation of the helm to these, and the 
strenuous work which he did. His description of his 
work would scarcely have a reference to his mental 
processes, while mine as descriptive of his work 
would be full of such terms as would describe his 
mental apprehension of the varying conditions and 
the adjustment of his action to meet them. 

To the fact that the man is directly conscious of 
the object, and only conscious of himself as the 
subject when he directs attention that way, may be 
ascribed the plausibility of the account Hume has 
given of the process. When we attend to the pro- 
cess of seeing, we attend to what is seen and to the 
seeing of it. There is a double process, and it is 
little wonder that a plain man does take little interest 
in the workings of his own mind. What is present 



206 THEISM 

to every state of consciousness is not distinctive of 
any state. But even a plain man is aware that to 
the ordinary states of consciousness there is added 
a consciousness that they have come and gone. It is 
not a proper recognition of the fact to suppose that 
several perceptions being given, their collective con- 
sciousness is also given, for the awareness of the 
series is something not given in the series. In short, 
there is, we repeat, a series of states of consciousness 
and a consciousness of the states. Consciousness is 
the specific feature or condition of all mental spates ; 
not as something added to, apart from, or antecedent 
to mental states, but as that element which consti- 
tutes them as mental states. Feeling, knowing, 
acting, are conscious states, modes of consciousness, 
and consciousness is not the sum of these, but the 
condition of their existence. We may write of feel- 
ing, knowing, willing, as unconscious, if we please, but 
these are phrases which have no contents for con- 
sciousness. 

Faculties are modes of consciousness, but con- 
sciousness is not a faculty. It is impossible to 
regard it as the outcome of unconscious forces, nor 
can it be deduced or derived from anything else ; we 
must just accept it in its uniqueness as the explana- 
tion of everything that can be explained, itself un- 
explained. We have the happiness of knowing it 
from both sides, we know it from without, in the 
same way as we know other objects of science ; and 



PERSONALITY 20/ 

we know it from within, can surprise it in its work- 
ing, and constrain it to disclose its secret and mani- 
fest its nature and its vocation. While we affirm 
that consciousness must be assumed, and while it 
cannot be derived nor resolved into something 
simpler, still the conditions of its exercise may be 
studied. As we know it in ourselves it has a begin- 
ning, a growth, and a history. Thrust into the midst 
of conditions not realized, slowly learning to find 
itself at home in the world, and gradually coming 
to the knowledge that there is an external order to 
which it is related, the self-conscious being, in inter- 
course with things, comes, so far, to the knowledge 
of self and of the world. The story may be taken 
for granted here, at least so far as to assume that the 
finite personality grows to the recognition of itself. 
It comes to distinguish between self and not-self. 
There is the self and there is the not-self. But 
this does not carry us very far. It would give 
only a very vague objectivity, without a definite 
content. 

Consciousness enierges from this vague state when 
it recognizes that there are distinctions among its 
objects, relations in which these may be gathered 
up. One thing is related to another, and the relations 
run together, and in virtue of these, consciousness 
begins to find itself in an ordered world, and comes 
to know that its own principles are realized in the 
objects it finds around it. In virtue of its own rational 



208 THEISM 

nature it recognizes that it is in a rational universe. 
One remark is necessary here on two distinctions 
which are often used as if they were conterminous. 
One is the distinction between self and not-self, and 
the other is that between subject and object. These 
are by no means of equal extent and content. The 
boundaries of the first distinction are fixed and deter- 
mined, the boundaries of the second are constantly 
changing. The one may be called an ontological 
distinction, for it relates to the distinction between 
two things, which in their distinction may be supposed 
to make up the whole sphere of being. The dis- 
tinction between subject and object describes a mental 
function. The contents of the two are constantly 
changing. At one moment the object may be this 
table, with its shape, colour, its material, and the 
next moment the object may be the mental process 
which passed through the mind when the table was 
the object. The object may be either the things in 
the outer world, or it may be the states of conscious- 
ness by means of which we deal with the outer 
world. It may be the thing I seem to see, or it may 
be the vision through which I see it. 

This remark is necessary, for a great deal of talk 
has come into existence about subject and object, 
and many inferences drawn from the contrast, such 
as that there cannot be an infinite consciousness, for 
a subject implies an object ; and if the self is subject, 
it cannot, also, be object, and so on, all of which 



PERSONALITY 209 

disappears when we remember that the distinction 
between subject and object is not an ontological 
distinction, but only the form under which conscious- 
ness takes place. They are relations within one 
experience. 

Let us remember, also, that we are dealing here 
and in the first place with finite selves, each of which 
has had an individual history, a growth to conscious- 
ness ; not with a self rational, and fully self-conscious 
from the beginning. As we wisely form our concep- 
tion of a man from the fully developed man, thor- 
oughly furnished in all that concerns humanity, so 
we take our ideal of consciousness, not from the 
process by which it came to itself, but from what it 
manifests when it is fully realized. It is not neces- 
sary for our purpose to dwell on the natural history 
of the individual, but we must lay stress on one thing. 
The conception of self, like all other conceptions, is 
one of gradual growth, and the time of its perfect 
realization is, for us, not yet. If you ask a child 
what its idea of the self is, the most likely answer 
will be a reference to the outward appearance. The 
body is regarded as the self, and most people, not 
trained in philosophy, if asked about the self, will 
look for it as if it were laid on a shelf, a thing among 
other things. They are so immersed in present ex- 
periences that they never ask for whom and whose 
is the experience } The conception of self is not 
given ready made, it grows, it is acquired, 
p 



2IO THEISM 

While the experience of self is always present to 
every mind, the conception of the self as the subject 
of experience may never come to clear consciousness. 
There is a clearness and vividness in self-conscious- 
ness which puts all other things into antithesis with 
itself. There is an assertiveness about it which is 
unique. The world falls into two divisions for each 
of us, — there is myself, and there is the universe of 
other persons and thmgs, — and this antithesis is of a 
kind that abides. Other people there may be, they 
also may think, they may have experiences of the 
same kind, but these experiences lack the vividness 
and impressiveness of my experience of myself, as a 
living, feeling, thinking being. It is in this real con- 
crete life of feeling that selfhood acquires vividness 
and reality. Self-experience may be the only form 
which self-consciousness may assume. The self may 
be so absorbed in the process of experience, so lost 
in the feelings, desires, thoughts, which occupy it 
from moment to moment, that it may never reflect 
on itself, and never ask consciously what it is. It 
may remain on this level all through its earthly life. 
Absorbed in its objects, living out its experience of 
pleasure, engrossed in its pursuits, and interested in 
the success of its plans, it may never seek to reflect 
on its own nature or on the wonder implied in the 
most simple experience. We may be active, ener- 
getic, far-sighted, and wise to the uttermost, and 
yet we may have never given a single hour to the 



PERSONALITY 2 1 1 

thought of that self which has all these character- 
istics. 

The mind may direct itself on either element of ex- 
perience to the neglect of the other, it may focus its 
attention on the subject or on the object. Self-con- 
sciousness may remain at the level of the simple expe- 
rience of itself, or it may advance to a conception of 
the self as the subject of all possible experience for 
the self. In any case, a perfect self-consciousness is 
implicit in every consciousness. It is possible for a 
self to advance to the conception of itself as the sub- 
ject of experience, which takes up all impressions, 
rules them, binds them into a system, and makes them 
parts in one consistent experience. In that case self- 
consciousness would have attained its ideal, for it 
would have reached the goal of self-knowledge and 
self-control. The conception of a perfect self-con- 
sciousness consists in the fact that it is in posses- 
sion of itself, and can set the bounds of its own 
experience. Self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-con- 
trol, in these, and not in its finitude or infinitude, lies 
the conception of a perfect selfhood. 

Here, then, is the fundamental element in the con- 
ception of personality, the highest conception which 
we know. A person is one who has experience of 
self, and may advance to the conception of self as 
the subject of all possible experience, at least, of all 
experience of that self. Having obtained this point 
of view, we ought to go farther and regard the self 



212 THEISM 

as subject of all possible knowledge, for knowledge 
is possible, because all the objects of knowledge are 
or may be brought into relation to the self. Objects 
out of all possible relation to the self are for that self 
non-existent. Apart from the questions raised by 
the theory of knowledge, we look at the ethical side 
of conception of the self, as it is of the highest sig- 
nificance. Psychology tells us that there is a self, 
the theory of knowledge affirms the worth of the 
self as the subject of knowledge for which all objects 
are, and ethics enables us to look at the self in the 
process of self-realization and self-determination. 
Ethically, the self is presented to our view as in the 
light of its own ideal, determining itself in certain 
directions and to certain ends. It has to choose its 
ideals and to realize them. 

The distinction between psychology, theory of 
knowledge, and ethics is not absolute, for every 
problem has these three aspects, and all meet to- 
gether in the problem of the self. How is the self 
to be realized and to come to its ideal } To answer 
this question would lead us very far, but the answer 
which concerns us now is mainly ethical. From this 
point of view all our science is to be looked at in its 
bearing on conduct, in its tendency to build up char- 
acter, and to guide conduct. As knowledge lies in 
its reference to the self, so ethics has its significance 
as the intelligible means for the realization of the 
self, not in its mere selfhood, but as a member of a 



PERSONALITY 21 3 

kingdom of selves, each of whom is a self which 
ought to be helped to reaHze its ideal. Take sym- 
pathy, for example, and look at it psychologically, it 
is a feeling which has in it pleasure or pain. We 
may analyze it into its elements and set forth its psy- 
chological meaning, but when psychology has done 
its work, ethics begins, and shows that by means of 
sympathy the self realizes that it is only one in a 
kingdom of selves, each one of whom has a right to 
count for one in the kingdom of good. The self 
learns to judge not from the feeling of pleasure and 
pain which he experiences, but he judges his actions 
by the good or harm they do to others. 

As the reference to self is the unity of our know- 
ledge and of our experience, in the ethical life a 
similar synthesis must take place. We must take 
care lest we pay too large a price for our intellectu- 
alism, and for our tendency to reduce all things to 
system. We must not lose hold of the concrete, liv- 
ing, throbbing, palpitating individual, with all his 
interesting experience, and substitute a cold series 
of abstractions in his place. Nor ought we to make 
the ethical life a thing of mere feeling. It is of the 
essence of a self-conscious being that he can look 
back on the changing, impulsive, fluctuating life of 
himself, submit it to his own review and to his own 
reflection, and seek to find the principle on which he 
has lived, and to gather it up into a rational whole. 
The self-conscious being who can and will, with 



214 THEISM 

insight, foresight, and deliberation, set himself to do 
this is on the way to be a person in the fullest 
sense of the word. He takes what is given to him, 
transforms it and himself into a larger whole, and 
in so doing he has reahzed himself and attained to 
personaHty. Personality for finite beings is a goal 
to be attained, not an inheritance they have received. 
Individuality and personality are to be distinguished 
from each other. Individuality is given, personality 
is won. An animal has individuality, it has all the 
impulses and feehngs which tend to self-preserva- 
tion and race-preservation, and can maintain itself 
in the struggle for existence. Man is also a self 
in this lower meaning of the word. He has his ap- 
petites, desires, passions, impulses, which demand 
satisfaction, and urge him on to action. These 
exist in him, and rise in him as readily as in any 
animal. If allowed to have their way uncontrolled, 
in their total working they would constitute the man 
as they appear to constitute the animal. But they 
do not, at least they need not, constitute man. As 
a fact they do not so, for man can subdue his im- 
pulses, rule his passions, control his desires, and 
make them servants to a higher purpose. He can 
reflect on the phenomena which make up his mani- 
fold life, and look at them in their relation to a final 
and permanent good. Man may take a critical 
view of his sentient and impulsive life, subject it to 
a judicial review, choose which tendencies may be 



PERSONALITY 2 1 5 

repressed, and which may be strengthened and en- 
couraged, and thus become a moral personaHty. 
" Man goeth forth to his work and his labour until 
the evening." Man may review, he has the power 
to review the impulsive course of his past life, can 
criticise it, arrest its course, change and subdue the 
lower, animal, merely natural .self, and make himself 
subject to a rational ideal, and so build up, out of 
the plastic material of sensibility, a stable moral self. 
Character in this sense does not belong to an animal. 
Its life seems to be a life of natural and immediate 
sensibility, unchecked by any glimmering of Hfe as 
a whole. But for man there is a human task. All 
the natural tendencies to activity, all the surging 
elements of natural sensibihty, all the clamant im- 
pulses of his nature, have to be looked at by the 
rational self, criticised, judged, appraised, their rela- 
tive worth established in the judgment of the rational 
being who measures the good of life as a whole. 
The life of man is not a struggle of natural tenden- 
cies, he is the subject which feels all the promptings 
of passion and desire, but he is also the critic and 
judge of these, and it is as critic that he is master of 
his own destiny. 

" He saw life steadily and saw it whole," is a 
saying the profundity of which grows on us the more 
we think of it. It was spoken only of one, it is 
ideally true of every rational self-conscious person. 
Not lost in mere individuality, not swept along Uke 



2l6 THEISM 

a thing by the stream of feehng and impulse, but 
master of himself and of his work, ruler of himself 
and of his impulses, having regard to the worth of life 
as a whole, and measuring every experience by its 
worth for the whole of life ; this is something of the 
meaning of the saying. Much is given to us, but 
the given is the individuality out of which the per- 
sonality is to be made. To man is given the material 
out of which the rational personality is to be realized. 
Much is given, — race endowments, all that heredity 
can convey, temperament, constitution, — in fact, it 
would be tedious to enumerate all that is given to 
the individual. Time, place, circumstances, racial 
conditions, the atmosphere of society, and many 
other things are given, but the character is not given, 
it is wrought out by the man himself. These are 
given that we may realize our personality. To other 
beings the law of their life is given ; man has to sub- 
ject himself to law, and to choose the- highest law to 
which he will subject himself. 

The rational being has thus a work to do. The 
several elements in the individual life, the antithe- 
sis into which they tend to fall, the seeming con- 
tradictions between the sensual and the rational, 
between the individual and society, and all the other 
divergencies which might be stated, are to be har- 
monized in the unity of the personal life. But this 
is only one part of self-realization. To unite the 
several elements of the individual life so that there 



PERSONALITY 21/ 

will ensue a realized harmony is a great achievement ; 
it is still greater to unite the several personal lives 
in a synthesis of a larger sort. The individual is 
particular, personality is universal. All humanity is 
potentially in every man. Each of us has to out- 
grow the individual, and to attain to somewhat of 
that personality which is the conciliation of the 
several individual lives. 

" Be a person and respect others as persons." 
" Always use the humanity in thine own person and in 
the persons of others," never as a means, but always 
as an end, or as it is in Shakespeare, '' To thine own 
self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, 
thou canst not then be false to any man." Each 
person an end in himself, with a right to demand 
from the universe the means for the realization of 
himself, and every person a law to himself in virtue 
of the realized rationality within himself, that is the 
ethical ideal set before us, alas ! how far from being 
realized ! Still in our best moments we feel that this 
is the right ideal for a man. To feel the oneness of 
the rational self with all other rational selves in the 
world, to know that just as far as we realize the 
rational ideal of humanity in ourselves, we are ipso 
facto brought into oneness with all others who bear 
the mark of personality. This oneness does not 
mean the obliteration of differences, it does not do 
away with that characteristic note of a man which 
makes him himself something distinct from all other 



2l8 THEISM 

in the world, but it gives a place to him in the com- 
mon kingdom, which is constituted by such a union 
of all as is consistent with the freedom of each. Our 
study of the personality of man leads to this 
conclusion, that personality is not to be suppressed, 
not to be submerged in a larger whole which will swal- 
low it up as the river swallows up the snowflakes 
which fall on it ; rather whatever the synthesis may 
be, it at least must be of a kind which will leave the 
person free to continue in his self-conscious activity, 
as a being that has worth and significance in himself. 
That is to say, that the larger unity of which we are 
in search must be constituted on another basis, and 
after another sort than any we have met in the course 
of our exploration. The cells which we came to 
know in their differentiated state as parts of one 
organism had a union among themselves only on 
condition that they were in subordination to the 
whole. They no longer maintained a separate exist- 
ence. But the persons who make up a society main- 
tain their relative independence ; there are character- 
istics which they cannot give up if they are to remain 
persons. They must continue to exert all the modes 
of their consciousness, must live out their own feel- 
ing, thinking, acting, and, in a word, they must be 
themselves and not others. In this continuance of 
their personal life and growth consists their worth 
for society, and their worth in themselves. Not to 
be ground in a social mill until all angularities are 



PERSONALITY 



219 



rubbed off : no, that is not the ideal ; rather the ideal 
is to sharpen the angularities and keep them in all 
their picturesqueness, so that there may be the fullest 
development of the uniqueness of every personality, 
along with the fulness of the rational unity consti- 
tuted by a spiritual integration of such personalities. 
Such a unity can only be constituted by the rational 
choice of such personalities. The unity of a barrel 
is made by the hoops, the unity of an organism is 
constituted by a principle of life acting from within, 
the unity of a social organism must be constituted by 
the self-surrender of the members to the whole, and 
of the whole to the members. Such a unity is not 
yet, but it is coming nearer. At all events, we have 
made such progress as to be able to set forth in some 
adequate way the conditions of such a social union. 
We can see that the ways of holding peoples and 
nations together which have prevailed through the 
past have not been ideal ways. Standing armies, 
brute force, repressive legislation, one people holding 
another in subjection, — these are not ideal ways of 
reaching social union. But on these I am not called 
to dwell. What I am concerned with is the necessary 
condition to any social union, namely, that there must 
be full scope in it for the development of the individ- 
ual to a personality, and that the surrender of the 
person to the good of the society must be deliberate, 
rational, free, in a word, it must be rational self- 
surrender. 



220 THEISM 

The spirit of the society may pass into the mem- 
bers of that society, and the social ethos be realized 
in each member, but it will be realized by him in his 
own characteristic way. Character may be as dis- 
tinctive as faces are, the common type is there, but 
each face has something distinctive. So with the 
personality, it is one, but with distinctions. For this 
spiritual thing which we call personality is the most 
unique product of time. Imperfectly realized as it is, 
it yet presents us with the most complete type we 
know of imperviousness, and resistance to all merely 
external influences. Force may be brought to bear 
upon it, it may be crushed out of visible existence, 
you may cage it, imprison it, and the caged imprisoned 
thing may sing, " My mind to me a kingdom is." It 
may maintain its sturdy independence, and if it is to 
be subdued, it must be by influence of another kind. 
If it is to recognize itself as a member of a larger 
unity, that unity must come to it in a fashion which 
will recognize the worth of the person. There are 
limits to the demands which the social organism may 
make. None can have the right to demand from 
a person the surrender of that which would make 
him cease to be a person and which would turn him 
into a thing. 

These remarks have a wide significance, which is 
not limited to the discussion of social questions, on 
which I do not enter. They have a bearing on phil- 
osophical and ethical questions, the discussion of 



PERSONALITY 221 

which is occupying the attention of the deepest 
thinkers on this side and on our side of the water. 
These questions will be looked at later. Meanwhile 
let us look at the process by which the rational being 
may be persuaded to serve, obey, love, and work in 
union with his fellows. For by persuasion alone can 
this result be rightly wrought out. It is by ideals 
that the rational man is led to self-surrender. It is 
by an appeal to his rational nature that the process 
of self-realization can be guided to its destined end. 
Each aspect of our complex nature makes its own 
contribution to the ideal. Nor can science make any 
progress without an appeal to an ideal. From the 
experience that the self has of the energy it exerts 
in its own action, science leaps forth to the conception 
of an infinite and eternal energy from which all 
things proceed. From the intelligent action of the 
self and the room for that action which it experi- 
ences in the world, science obtains the conception of 
an intelligence which is equal to the ordering of the 
world. Reason is postulated as the cause of the 
rationality of the world. From the appreciation of 
beauty and harmony which man finds in the world, 
the aesthetic ideal of an infinite source of beauty is 
constructed. The conscience of man thirsting after 
righteousness cannot rest until it reaches an ideal of 
perfect righteousness in which there is no becoming, 
and the heart of man demands an ideal of perfect 
goodness and love. As long as any demand of 



222 THEISM 

intelligence, conscience, heart, or reason is unrecog- 
nized, there can be no peace for man. Only when 
all the claims of the many-sided nature of man are 
recognized in the conception of an all-wise, holy, lov- 
ing, all-powerful God, can man realize himself. 

Are these ideals real } Are they not the objecti- 
fication of our own needs } Are they the Brocken 
shadows of ourselves cast upon the wastes of space } 
Does not the idea of an infinite personality land us 
in contradiction } Well, I do not hesitate to say 
that for the interpretation of our experience, we are 
entitled to make those assumptions without which 
experience is not possible. This is axiomatic. In 
fact, it is done by every one who ventures to make 
universal propositions. Every one assumes in his 
philosophy that, to use the words of Mr. Spencer, 
" I am in the presence of an infinite and eternal 
energy from which all things proceed." We are 
entitled to ask, whence this conception has come } 
For it is certain that our finite experience, consid- 
ered in itself, cannot make such an affirmation. As 
merely quantitative, we cannot measure, weigh, or 
reckon an infinite. We reach the idea of infinite 
power by recognizing that we cannot set any limit to 
it, yet our positive notion of power is derived from 
our own activity. If we grant to Mr. Spencer the 
conception of infinite and eternal energy, we still 
maintain that the notion is positive, not negative. 
Infinite and eternal are not negative, they merely 



PERSONALITY 223 

set forth that there are objects to the worth and 
excellence of which we can set no limits. 

The main object of these remarks is to show the 
inconsistency of those who first make universal prop- 
ositions themselves, and refuse to others the same 
right. If we can form an idea of power, if we can 
without contradiction speak of an infinite and eternal 
energy, we have opened up the way to the affirmation 
of other ideals. The affirmation of an energy is the 
raising of one part of our experience to its ideal, and 
the idea of force has no better inherent right to be 
thus raised to the infinite than any other idea has. 
But a great many raise this conception to an ideal 
height, and then use it to criticise all other ideals. 
If we speak of perfect righteousness, of infinite 
intelligence, of perfect beauty, or of eternal good- 
ness and love, we are at once told that we are an- 
thropomorphic, and those who say so forget that 
the notion of energy is quite as anthropomorphic as 
any of these mentioned. In truth, the contention, if 
carried out consistently, would destroy science alto- 
gether, and limit our thought to what happens in 
our own time and within the narrow circle of our 
purely personal experience, and that in the narrow- 
est sense of the word "experience." If, as the cor- 
relative of our experience of power, Spencer can 
speak of an infinite and eternal energy, he may not 
limit the rights of others. If infinite power is in- 
volved in our experience of finite power, then with 



224 THEISM 

a right as good infinite reason is involved in the 
exercise of the finite reason we know, aye, and with 
a much better claim. Perfect righteousness, holi- 
ness free from all imperfection, goodness, and love 
are involved in the finite experience of the righteous- 
ness, holiness, and love realized among men. I know 
no reason why they claim reality for their ideal, and 
refuse reality to mine. I am in relation to an ex- 
ternal world which reveals itself to me through my 
senses, and I can interpret these manifestations into 
a system. If my experience thus interpreted is jus- 
tified by the result, as it is, is the objective reference 
exhausted by this interpretation of sense experience t 
Have we not acted on the supposition that all our 
experience must have an objective reference.'' In 
my intellectual action I must think there is an intel- 
ligible world, in my moral action I make the same 
assumption, namely, that heart and conscience in 
me are related to an objective authority which has a 
right to guide my life and dictate my action. 

These ideals stand on the same level, or, if there is 
any preference, the preference is in favour of these 
ideals prescribed by the necessities of the higher 
nature of man. But I do not pitch them against 
each other. For we need for our thought and for our 
life the conception of the infinite and eternal energy, 
and we go on to say that this energy is, also, the 
realization of all ideals, and all these ideals are real- 
ized in the One Eternal energy from which all things 



PERSONALITY 225 

proceed and to which they all tend to return. The 
theistic belief is that all these positive ideals are real- 
ized in one infinite personality to whom we are 
related in many ways, whom we may know, and 
who may make Himself known to us. Now the only 
category we know in which and by means of which 
we may set forth the infinite qualities of such a being 
is just that of personality. It is the widest word 
known to us and the greatest unity. Even in the 
finite person, how many qualities meet ! Mind and 
body, matter and spirit, instinct and reason, feeling, 
thought, and action, consciousness of pleasure and 
pain, of good and evil, all brought together within the 
synthesis of one experience. We say then, if we have 
the right of raising any part of our experience to its 
ideal, a fortiori we have the right to raise the whole 
synthetic unity to its ideal, and that gives us the con- 
ception of a perfect personality. 

But personality is a limitation, and how can you 
ascribe a limitation to the unlimited } We hear this 
urged by many in our land, indeed, it is the favourite 
agnostic position. It has been often argued during 
the last half century, and I shall not spend much time 
on it. With Lotze, I would say that perfect person- 
ality can only be found in the infinite. The ideal 
personality is one in which there is no becoming, 
no limits save those set by itself, which is in perfect 
possession of itself, and sets the bounds of its own ex- 
perience and determines all its states. To the reality 
Q 



226 THEISM 

of such a personality we are led by all the experience 
of man. It is the demand of the reason, the postu- 
late of our moral nature, the claim of the will, which 
requires it as the guarantee of its venture of faith, 
launched as it is on a world not realized. To me the 
difficulty is not whether personality should be predi- 
cated of God, but whether so great a word should be 
a predicate of man. At the best, we are imperfect 
persons, with a personality not realized, dependent, 
having our states and our experience largely set for 
us, not by us, not able to determine wholly either the 
character or the limits of our experience. Yet the 
personaUty in ourselves is so far given as to enable 
us to see what a perfect personality is. 

In fact, I would sum up the whole argument in this 
one word, *' personality." I do not employ the word 
** self -consciousness," as some do, for it seems to me 
that self-consciousness is only one element of person- 
ality. It is simply the outline of personality which has 
to be filled up with the elements of concrete experience 
to redeem it from mere abstractness. Reason, intelli- 
gence, righteousness, love, are mere metaphors when 
divorced from their significance as qualities of a per- 
son. This is the conclusion to which we are led by 
the history of science and philosophy, and, as we shall 
see, this is the supreme demand of reUgion, and if it 
is not conceded, religion is impossible in any true 
sense of the word. 



VIII 

RELIGION: ITS NATURE, HISTORY, AND 
DEMANDS 

In speaking of religion, there are two proposi- 
tions I desire to make regarding it at the outset. 
The first is that religion is universal and belongs 
to man as man. All men have been conscious of 
their dependence on a power greater than them- 
selves, and have felt a necessity of being on good 
terms with that power. They have believed in the 
existence of such a power; they have sought to 
propitiate that power in many ways ; and they have 
recognized that that power had prescribed for them 
a certain kind of life. The result of investigation 
leads to the historical conclusion that there has 
been no people without a religion; at least, such 
a people has not yet been discovered. A religion 
gives a creed to believe, commands to obey, and 
consolations to be enjoyed. And these are ele- 
ments in every religion. 

A second proposition I venture to make is that 
religion is universal in another aspect ; namely, it 
belongs to every part of human nature. It is not 
a matter merely of the reason, nor is it merely 

227 



228 THEISM 

based on feeling, nor is it only directed toward 
action. It appeals to the whole consciousness of 
man, and to every mode of it. It is rational, emo- 
tional, and volitional. It gives truth for the in- 
telligence, consolations for the heart, motive and 
guidance for the will. It is necessary to insist on 
these commonplaces, for religion has been identi- 
fied with philosophy, and the problem of the one 
has been stated as if it were the problem of the 
other; it has been denuded of every rational ele- 
ment and transformed into a mere matter of feel- 
ing; and it has been identified with ethics, and its 
commands made to be simply ethical injunctions. 
Now my contention is that rehgion is a philosophy. 
It has truth to proclaim, but it is more. Religion 
is emotional ; it addresses the emotions, quickens 
the affections, and purifies the heart, but it is 
more. It does command and prescribe a certain 
kind of life, but it does more. In fact, religion is 
at home within the whole complex nature of man, 
and makes its appeal to the whole man, and insists 
on being with him in all his thinking, feeling, acting. 
Thus addressing the whole man, and thus in- 
terested in all his activity, it follows that no effort 
and no work of man is indifferent to his religion. 
It is sometimes said that there is a conflict between 
religion and science, between religion and philoso- 
phy, but such a conflict is not necessary nor is it 
reasonable. It might as well be said that there is 



RELIGION 229 

a conflict between religion and commerce, between 
religion and architecture, and between religion and 
any other form of human activity. No doubt such 
conflicts have been, and books have been written 
to set forth the history of the conflict between 
science and religion, between philosophy and re- 
ligion, just as books have been written to describe 
conflicts between different forms of religion. It 
seems to me that such conflicts are unnecessary; 
and it would be well to say broadly that religion 
has its rights, and these have to be recognized in 
any thoughtful treatment of human life, thought, 
and history. It is happily not necessary to insist 
on this nowadays, when every statement as to the 
phenomena of religion in any part of the world and 
from any age of history is eagerly welcomed, and 
forms material for serious study to the most thought- 
ful of living men. They eagerly investigate the phe- 
nomena of religion, if from no other interest, at 
least from the point of view that here are real be- 
liefs of men, and it is important for men to know 
and understand them. Thus the activity of thought 
in this department is immense, and books by the 
dozen issue from the press dealing with the philoso- 
phy of religion, the making of religion, the history 
of religions, and so on. We cannot complain of a 
want of interest in this great question, even though 
we may complain of the inadequate account given 
of the origin, the nature, and the truth of religion. 



230 THEISM 

Of religious belief Mr. Spencer says truly, "Thus 
the universality of religious ideas, their independent 
evolution among different primitive races, and their 
great vitality unite in showing that their source must 
be deep-seated instead of superficial. In other words, 
we are obliged to admit that if not supernaturally de- 
rived as the majority contend, they must be derived 
out of human experiences, slowly accumulated and 
organized." (" First Principles," pp. 14-15.) Again, 
" Considering all faculties, as we must do on this sup- 
position, to result from accumulated modifications 
caused by the intercourse of the organism with its 
environment, we are obliged to admit that there exist 
in the environment certain phenomena or conditions 
which have determined the growth of the feeling in 
question, and so are obliged to admit that it is as 
normal as any other faculty." (P. 16.) When we ask 
what is the function of this faculty, admitted by Mr. 
Spencer to be as normal as any other, we find on ex- 
amination of his voluminous works that it has scarcely 
any function at all. It has the strange peculiarity, 
surely very strange for a normal faculty, of always 
being in the wrong, of taking illusions for realities, 
and of reaching wrong conclusions during all the 
years of its operation. Mr. Spencer assigns all that 
is knowable to science, and leaves to religion all that 
transcends knowledge, with the assurance that let 
religion strive as it may, it can never reach reality, 
and never attain to knowledge. It seems rather hard 



RELIGION 231 

to treat at the outset all the religious strivings of reli- 
gion as without a goal or a legitimate result, and all 
the religious experience of mankind as vain. Yet 
this is what Mr. Spencer does, he leaves to religion 
its mystery, but he leaves it nothing else. Still, let 
us take his admission that the religious faculty is 
as normal as any other faculty, and that there are 
conditions and phenomena in the environment cor- 
responding to man's religious nature. With this 
concession we may take our own way of ascertaining 
what in the environment corresponds to the religious 
needs of man, and what man has discovered that 
feature of the environment to be. 

We take with us the presupposition that there is a 
correspondence between experience and reality, that 
as room has been found in the world for human ac- 
tivity, that as methods corresponding to the rational 
methods of human reason are found at work in the 
world, and as man has found his mathematics and 
his logic at work in the world, so this great part of 
human experience which we call religion has its 
sphere and function, its place and its truth, in the uni- 
verse in which man has found himself. There is no 
reason why religion should be limited to what tran- 
scends knowledge, or why its function should be to 
deal only with the unknowable. We submit that a 
philosophy which aspires to be perfectly unified know- 
ledge, fails if it does not deal with religious experi- 
ence, or take into account the action of this faculty 



232 THEISM 

admitted to be normal. In fact, philosophy, in all the 
forms and phases of it in vogue at the present hour, 
admits the obligation, though it must be said it dis- 
charges the function most imperfectly. Religion is 
for it a special form of the philosophical problem as 
their system sets it forth. For the Hegelian idealist, 
it is only the last and highest form of the philosophi- 
cal thesis ; for the positivist, it is only a kind of after 
thought added by the founder to make room for a 
new experience of his own. For the agnostic, religion 
represents, so far as it has ideas, the necessary failure 
which comes to man when he tries to formulate his 
notions of what transcends knowledge. Thus, while 
philosophy seeks to have its philosophy of rehgion 
for the most part, the religion seems to escape, and 
the philosophy alone remains. 

It is not my purpose to dwell on the history of 
religion, nor on the various modes of its manifesta- 
tion ; nor do I mean to set forth, still less to criticise, 
the various theories of the origin, nature, and function 
of religion in vogue at the present hour; nor shall I 
spend my time endeavouring to set forth a philosophy 
of religion. Any of these would be a worthy work, 
were there time for it. What is sought to be done in 
this lecture is, simply, the sequel of what has been 
attempted up till now. We say that as the thought of 
man has widened he has been constrained to recog- 
nize the existence of wider and wider unities in the 
synthesis of his knowledge in relation to reality. 



RELIGION 233 

From physical unities held together by pressure, to 
organic unity of the organism, to the higher unity of 
life, to the unity of personal life, to the spiritual unity 
of the social organism, we found ourselves bound to 
rise, and we felt that each higher unity made a larger 
demand on our power of conception. We felt tempted 
at every upward turn of the spiral to substitute for 
the concrete reality some easier conception, something 
more easily grasped and handled. Yet we found that 
these higher unities were rational unities constituted, 
perhaps, by a higher reason than ours ; and we ought 
to treat them as the goal of our thinking. Purposely, 
these higher unities were looked at from various points 
of view, and the question of religion was omitted from 
the treatment, lest it would complicate it unduly. Of 
course, religion was an all-important factor in personal 
and social experience from the beginning, and the 
higher unities could not have been constituted apart 
from it. But the consideration of religion widens the 
problem immeasurably. It brings with it an eternal 
element, it widens the horizon of the present by bring- 
ing into our life the relations in which we stand not 
only to our fellow-men, but the relations in which we 
stand to God. It widens the boundaries of the past, 
for it compels us to think of the human beings who 
have lived and died, as living at this hour, and of all 
the dead as contemporaries, all existing somehow in 
the eternal present. It casts our thoughts forward 
to the future, and compels us to face not only the prob- 



234 THEISM 

lems of the present life, but to face them with the 
added burden of the bearing they have on the eternal 
future of ourselves and others. 

Thus religion by its thought of God and immortal- 
ity widens our horizon immeasurably, and transforms 
every scientific and philosophic problem into a prob- 
lem of much wider significance. It therefore needs 
larger resources for adequate dealing with its special 
problems than are needed by science and philosophy. 
It needs a deeper than philosophic faith, a wider than 
scientific experiment. For from the nature of the 
case many of its beliefs cannot be subjected to scien- 
tific verification. None of us know yet what it is to 
die, and none of us have experience of what comes 
after death ; and so the beliefs, the ineradicable belief 
in the life which follows after death, must be based on 
hope, or on our belief in the testimony of one who 
knows. The belief in immortality has been one of 
the most persistent beliefs of men, and it has all the 
marks of a rational belief worthy of a rational being ; 
but from the nature of the case it cannot be verified 
in the way in which I have verified for myself the 
existence of New York. We may expect to verify it 
by and by, but the time is not yet. 

If the fact corresponds to the belief, if all who have 
lived somewhere in the eternal present, if Moses, 
Isaiah, Socrates, Plato, if the great thinkers, prophets, 
poets, religious guides and leaders of the human race 
are living at this hour, surely that widens our thought 



RELIGION 235 

of the unity of men, more specially if we believe, as 
we must, that they are still in some sort of relation to 
us and we to them. It shows to us that religion with 
its characteristic beliefs brings into the problem ele- 
ments which philosophy laid little stress on, which 
indeed it has for the most part neglected. The en- 
vironment for religious people becomes much wider 
and deeper. It is not for rehgion what it is for phi- 
losophy, — the concourse of people living at the present 
hour, with all the inherited influences, transmitted 
tendencies, and accumulated thought and experience 
of the past ; it means also that these living forces are 
still living, and all the people of the past may be- 
come the living environment of the present for any 
one of us. If religion has this as a living belief, it 
must exercise a corresponding influence on life and 
conduct. And this belief widens the problem of 
religion beyond the range of philosophy. It be- 
comes the highest problem that man can grapple 
with, for it has brought with it elements which have 
not been prominent in the treatment which philoso- 
phy bestows on its problems. 

Religion teaches us to look at the social environ- 
ment from a new point of view. We saw the signifi- 
cance of the family, the city, the state, and other in- 
stitutions in the training of men. We see, also, that 
heredity does not exhaust the debt we owe to our 
ancestors, nor have their gifts to us descended alto- 
gether by the line of direct descent. Men have 



236 THEISM 

lived, wrought, felt, acted, and they have written 
their experience, and the written thoughts and deeds 
of former thinkers and workers have become the most 
effective means of training their successors. This is 
a commonplace. But the commonplace is transfig- 
ured when religion grasps it, and gives it the colour 
of its own faith and hope. It tells us that no one of 
the achievements done by men in the past is lost, nor 
are they lost who did them. The men who opened 
out paths into strange countries of thought and expe- 
rience, who widened the bounds of knowledge, and 
left us examples of what human life and thought may 
be, are not passed into oblivion and non-existence, 
they are somewhere and doing some worthy work 
to-day. Assume this hope to have a true ground, 
and we add immeasurably to the worth of human life 
and endeavour. Life assumes a new meaning, hope 
takes a grander sweep, and the horizon is widened 
beyond measure. It is the characteristic way of re- 
ligion thus to introduce grandeur into our thoughts, 
and a deeper worth into our estimate of things. 

It is the mark of religion, in particular, to introduce 
the note of eternity into our estimate of the most 
common of our experiences. Philosophy takes note 
in its own way of eternity, but it grasps it with a fal- 
tering hand, and follows the clew with a hesitating 
foot. But religion neither falters nor hesitates, but 
boldly places all the objects of its contemplation in 
the light of eternity. In particular, it places persons 



RELIGION 237 

in this light, looks at them as beings who shall live 
forever, and regards all actions, feelings, and thoughts 
as something which has a significance that will never 
die. Above all the note of religion in its estimate of 
men is that it looks at this life and this world as the 
place for the making of persons, for the building up 
of character, and for the preparation of them for a 
place and a work in the kingdom of God. Philosophy 
at its best does not attempt so high a flight. It takes 
shorter views. Evolutionary philosophy limits its 
view to the lifetime of the sun, or, if it takes a longer 
view, it contemplates a collision with some other 
solar system, which will scatter the material of both 
systems into a cosmic cloud, and from such a nebula 
a process of evolution may again emerge to run a 
similar course. It contemplates with as much com- 
posure as is possible to it the wreck of all the toil 
and labour of the world. All the thoughts and work 
of men, even that thought which evolved the theory, 
vanish and leave not a wreck behind. Even Hege- 
lian evolution, which is a greater and higher thing 
than Darwinism, leaves us without a future, and its 
outlook is bounded by the life that now is. Indeed, 
the highest product of evolution in the hands of 
Hegel seems to be a Prussian at the beginning of the 
present century — a respectable product of evolution 
certainly, but one that does not seem to have ex- 
hausted the resources of civilization. 

Where philosophy falters, and where it almost 



238 THEISM 

fears to tread, religion boldly enters in and makes a 
home for itself. In virtue of this assured hope, 
which it may be said has been ever a characteristic 
of religion in every form of it, religion has trans- 
formed the problem of life, and made it a greater 
problem than ever. It has given to man a new en- 
vironment, by the very fact that it has placed him 
in eternity. It has given a new meaning to our 
endeavour by showing that all we do has a meaning 
that time cannot exhaust. If I learn to look at the 
man in the street as a man who shall live forever, 
then I dare not use him as a means for any end of 
mine. I dare not attenuate him to an aspect as I 
find myself in constant danger of doing, for he has 
in him the eternal worth of personality. Philosophy 
may teach us of the worth of man, it may tell me 
that as a person I must treat others as persons, and 
always use the humanity in my own person and 
in the persons of others as an end and never as 
a means ; but religion gives a new sanction to this 
teaching when it tells me of the worth of a person as 
a being of eternity. If the consequences of actions 
are exhausted here, if the building up of character 
has a meaning only within time, if the work we can 
do can live only in the memory of our successors, 
then clearly the motives which have only this tem- 
poral sanction are of less strength than those that 
reHgion enforces with its doctrine of immortality. 
As the advent of reason has transfigured all the 



RELIGION 239 

feelings, emotions, desires, thoughts, and volitions of 
the rational being, so a further transfiguration takes 
place in the plastic hand of religion. We may not 
speak of the advent of religion as if the appearance 
of it was subsequent to that of rationality, for man 
has always been a religious being. But religion does 
transfigure every aspect of the human being, gives a 
new character to his affections, a new stimulus to his 
action, a new motive to his endeavour, and a new 
aim to his aspiration. It brings new light to his in- 
telligence, and a new strength to his will. Only one 
of the great thoughts of religion has been yet looked 
at by us, but how great has been the significance of 
this thought for man ! The hope of immortality has 
had a larger influence than can be traced here, but 
let what has been indicated suffice for the present. 
The particular forms in which this hope has em- 
bodied itself are as various as are the races of men. 
It is quite true that these embodiments of the hope 
of the future life have not been of an elevating or of 
a purifying kind. True that the peoples thought 
of the future life in colours borrowed from the scenery, 
the occupations, the vicissitudes of the present life. 
The happy hunting ground of the Indian, the per- 
petual battle of Valhalla, the happy halls of the Egyp- 
tian, and all the innumerable forms which have been 
drawn by the imaginations of men to set forth the 
conditions of the future life, do not convey to us any 
real conception of what that life may be. In truth, 



240 THEISM 

we are not able to picture to ourselves what life in 
these new conditions may be, while we may be fully 
persuaded of the reality of that life, and the belief of 
it may have the largest and most beneficial influence 
on our conduct. It is quite legitimate for us to take 
our conception of the future life from the highest 
and best thought of it, set forth in the highest form 
of religion known to man, and to use all the other 
forms of it simply as testimonies to the universality 
and influence of that belief. Life and immortality 
have been brought to Hght, and these are the sure 
possession of the highest religion at this present 
hour. 

The belief in immortality and the belief in a divine 
being or beings have always gone together. There 
is no tribe without its God, as there is none without 
a religion. At all events, every tribe which has come 
within our knowledge had a belief in beings or a 
being superior to himself, whom he had to please 
and to propitiate, and on whose favour he depended 
for any good he desired. It is true that the forms 
in which he pictured this superior being vary widely. 
Almost all things on earth, under the earth, and 
over the earth, every phenomenon on land or sea or 
sky has been taken as a symbol or sign of the divine. 
The spirit worshipped, feared, and served may have 
had its home in the sun, moon, or stars, on the moun- 
tains or the plains, may have dwelt in anointed stones 
or sculptured pillar, in fact, there is nothing which 



RELIGION 241 

may not be or become a dwelling place of the spirit 
in which man believed. Anything might assume a 
sacred form, and attain to a sanctity arising from 
some relation to the divine being. Thus there were 
sacred stones, sacred trees, sacred groves, as well as 
sacred places, persons, and sacred guilds. So also 
there is no form of service which has not had a place 
in the observances which men have devoted to the 
worship of the divine beings in whom men believed. 
The sacred rites were innumerable, and the sacri- 
fices offered included all that a man had to give, — 
goods, possessions, cattle, slaves, children, wife, even 
personal honour and life itself were offered, if in 
no other way the lost fellowship could be restored. 
Thus the belief in a superior being receives illustra- 
tion from all the religious experience of the race. 
The intensity of the belief, and the reality of it, are 
attested by the earnestness and thoroughness of their 
religious service. It was a belief that influenced 
conduct in the most practical way. It was no half- 
hearted belief, it was living and real. 

Whether we regard religious belief as rational and 
one that is in correspondence with reality, or whether 
we regard it as superstitious and unjustified, there 
can be no difference of opinion as to the reality and 
intensity of it, and the powerful influence it has ex- 
erted on the thoughts and lives of men. Whether 
true or false, the belief in a divine being is a sign 
of the greatness of man. It reveals a power in man 



242 THEISM 

whereby he is enabled to transcend the present and 
the visible, to pierce through the veil of sense and 
time, and to think of himself as related to an unseen 
power to whom he could assign no limits. How 
earnestly he strove to find God, how eagerly he 
sought to serve Him, let the records of the religions 
of the world testify. Happily the labours of our 
numerous scientific workers in anthropology have 
made us acquainted with the forms which religion 
has assumed among the peoples of the earth. No 
doubt the facts are given to us mostly as illustrations 
of a theory, but still the facts are there, and we may 
separate them from the theory. One arranges the 
facts to set forth the theory that ancestor-worship 
is the root of every religion, another finds in animism 
the first outline of reHgion, and traces its develop- 
ment upwards through polytheism to theism. While 
others start with the worship of nature and natural 
phenomena, and then strive to find a method of de- 
velopment which will give the phenomena of the 
higher religions. The important thing for us is, 
not the various theories, but the universal fact 
they all assume. These theories I do not criticise 
here. 

This, however, must be said, that no theory has 
as yet commanded general assent. The ghost theory 
accounts for very few of the facts, and the theory 
of Tylor is met by the array of facts gathered to- 
gether by Mr. Andrew Lang, and these facts can- 



RELIGION 243 

not be explained on the animistic view. How did 
savage tribes come to believe in a God, of great 
power, of an ethical character, and of great and 
high attributes, when all their other beliefs were on 
the rudest savage level? That such is the case is 
abundantly proved by Mr. Lang, and also by your 
own Dr. Brinton. To these writers and to many 
others I refer for the proof of this statement, as my 
space is very limited. " Our next step," says Mr. 
Lang, retracing the steps of his argument, "was to 
examine in detail several religions of the most re- 
mote and backward races, of races least contami- 
nated with Christian or Islamite teaching. Our 
evidence, when possible, was derived from ancient 
and secret tribal mysteries and sacred native hymns. 
We found a relatively Supreme Being, a Creator, 
sanctioning morality, and unpropitiated by sacrifice, 
among peoples who go in dread of ghosts and wiz- 
ards, but do not always worship ancestors. We 
showed that the anthropological theory of the evo- 
lution of God out of ghosts in no way explains the 
facts in the savage conception of a Supreme Being." 
("The Making of Religion," pp. 327-8.) 

The evidence attainable as to the belief in God 
among early men, goes to prove that, be the source 
of that belief what it may, they did believe in a 
powerful, moral, eternal, omniscient Fattier and 
Judge of men. Religion and morality were not 
disjoined, they were united, and served the same 



244 THEISM 

end. " We see that even in its rudest forms religion 
was a moral force ; the powers that man reveres were 
the side of social order and tribal law ; and the fear 
of the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of 
society, which were also the laws of morality." 
(Robertson Smith, "Religion of the Semites," p. 53.) 
Religion in alliance with ethics, moral conduct en- 
forced by the commands of the Supreme Being, this 
is presented to us in the evidence gathered even by 
Spencer in his " Sociology." It is to be admitted that 
the conclusion is not universal, that religion is often 
divorced from morality, and rites and ceremonies 
have often ceased to have a moral reference. It is 
a fact that meets us in the history of advancing 
peoples that their religion remains conservative, while 
their intelligence, their morality, and their civilization 
makes progress. This conflict is often symbolized 
in the fact that there is a change in the character 
and names of the gods of a people. A change of 
the mind of the people may have left no trace save 
in a revolution among the gods. When Varuna 
ceased to be the chief figure among the Aryan gods, 
and Indra took his place ; when Ahura Mazda 
ceased to occupy the highest place in the thought 
of Iran, and attention was concentrated on Mithra, 
— the change indicated a profound revolution in the 
mind of the worshippers, and a change from a higher 
to a lower ethical platform. 

In truth, part of the tragedy of the ages lies in 



RELIGION 245 

the fact that religion tends to be conservative, while 
knowledge has grown ; the very sacredness of religion 
makes it averse to change. Thus a religion and the 
gods it worships may no longer fitly serve the higher 
needs of an advancing people. And religion may 
become hostile to morality. The rules it sanctioned 
fit for one stage of culture may be seen to be quite 
unsuitable for a higher stage. It is well illustrated 
in the case of Greece, Rome, and in fact in all the 
progressive nations of antiquity, in which we find 
elaborate explanations of the myths of the gods, and 
allegorical meanings are found for the stories of the 
adventures of the gods which had become incredible, 
as well as revolting. Thus the mind of the more 
educated was led away from religion ; and while the 
rites and ceremonies were duly observed, the feeHng 
these* represented had passed away. It is to be 
acknowledged that there have been religions which 
were irrational, childish, and immoral, and the con- 
ception of God contained in them was altogether 
unworthy. That is only to say that religious concep- 
tions were on a level with all the other conceptions in 
the savage mind at that stage of culture. But there 
has been a process by means of which religion has 
established its claim on man, and has absorbed all 
that is best and truest in his being, commending it- 
self to his whole nature, to his conscience, his heart, 
and his reason as the most precious endowment of 
his Hfe. There has also been a progressive purifica- 



246 THEISM 

tion of the idea of God till God becomes the moral 
ideal, and the Object of reverent worship. 

It has been a long process, and it is a process 
which will task the powers of man for ages yet to 
come. As we look back on the progress of religion, 
we see by no means a regular and orderly develop- 
ment. We see in some cases that the idea of the 
divine had scarcely in it any worthy element. The 
gods were often thought to be almost non-moral, 
capricious, selfish, lustful, hateful, and impure. Yes, 
and even when the moral sense revolted against the 
kind of action represented as divine, reverence con- 
strained silence. For a time the sense of depen- 
dence and the feeling of awe constrain to silence, 
and the commands of the god continue to be obeyed 
until the moral nature, gathering strength and cour- 
age, rises in revolt, and the relation between religion 
and morals becomes very strained. Sometimes, in 
such a crisis, many things may happen. Morality 
may go one way and religion another, or there may 
be a reformation of the religion, and a conception 
of God and His character may arise more fit and 
adequate to meet the higher thoughts of the wor- 
shipper, or there may be a new religion introduced 
under the impulse of a great religious leader. Ex- 
amples of each jnay readily be found in the history of 
religion. The beginning of morality may be found 
in a criticism of the prevalent religion of the hour. 
Anaxagoras, in the history of Greek thought, began 



RELIGIOISr 247 

the criticism of the religious teaching embodied in 
the poems of Homer and Hesiod, Xenophanes car- 
ried on the same necessary work, and Plato from 
a higher platform set himself to purify the religious 
conceptions of his time. Plato's criticism was not 
altogether destructive, rather it was an endeavour to 
remove from the character of the divine every trace 
of immorality, and to set forth the character of God 
as righteous, true, and good. The history of the 
strenuous attempts of the peoples to reach some 
worthy conception of the unseen power on whom 
they felt they depended, cannot be given here. It 
is a long and a painful story. 

It may, however, be said that we do find in the 
history of almost every people times when there is 
a conflict between the religion and the moral ele- 
ments of character they had come to reverence and 
observe. Sometimes, too, the conflict arises because 
the claims of religion are in advance of the moral 
power of obedience, and the ethical character of their 
god is far above their thought and their desires. Not 
often do we find a correspondence between the mo- 
rality and rehgion of the people. In a progressive 
people the morality outgrows the rehgion, in a people 
given over to self-indulgence the religion is higher 
than the morality. Only once in history do I find 
that a progressive development of morals was also 
a progressive revelation of the character of God. 
There in Israel the apprehension of the character of 



248 THEISM 

God was the signal of moral progress. The religious 
and the moral consciousness of that people was 
bound in a real unity, just because God was an 
ethical God. 

What has been said amounts to this, that the re- 
ligious needs of mankind were deep, wide, and abid- 
ing, and that satisfaction for these needs was difficult 
of attainment. When the people had a conception 
of a creator, ethical and powerful, it often happened 
that they were not able to use that thought for the 
practical guidance and consolation of their life. 
Either the thought made too great a demand on 
them, or they thought that God had no need of them 
and their service, or they were attracted by spiritual 
beings nearer to them who demanded service, so we 
find that among many tribes the worship of the 
creator God fell into the background, and the 
thought of Him had no practical effect on them. 
Still the thought and the fact were there, ready for 
use when the need for such a thought arose. 

The religious history of mankind is, without doubt, 
a record of high and lofty endeavour, begun ever 
anew after many a disastrous failure, and carried on 
with the hope that man will one day attain to the 
knowledge of God, the knowledge of whom is eternal 
life. Men have held fast to the belief in a supreme 
power, even when they had found no worthy thought 
by which they might think of Him. The divorce 
between religion and morality, the reverence which 



RELIGION 249 

made them slow to change the traditional thought of 
the unseen power whom their fathers believed in, the 
passionate seeking after a true thought of God which 
drove them at last into open rebeUion and revolt 
against an unworthy and untrue religion, are ele- 
ments in that age-long striving after God which 
assuredly would never have been perpetuated 
throughout the generations were there no God to 
seek. It is also true that these perturbations of 
spirit, these dissatisfactions with the teaching of 
almost all religions, are simply testimonies to the 
belief that God must be a worthy God when they 
have found Him. Every criticism of rehgion, rightly 
viewed, is really a protest against an unworthy or 
inadequate representation of the divine. God must 
be the ideal in whom all ideals meet. In Him must 
be the ideal of power, for from Him all power, as 
known to man, must flow. In Him is the ideal of 
reason, intelligence, wisdom; for all the arrange- 
ments of the universe are His appointments. Noth- 
ing exists beyond His power, nothing hidden from 
His omniscience. Then He has a purpose and a 
meaning in all His working, and He knows what 
His purpose is. He is righteous, just, holy, good, 
the ruler of the nations, and the judge of all. 

These characteristics of God are drawn from 
ancient literature, some of them from the Assyrian, 
Babylonian, and Egyptian hymns, and some of them 
from the Rigveda and the Zend-Avesta. They may 



250 THEISM 

also be paralleled, at least in the ascription of power 
and omniscience to the divine being, in many things 
told of the ruder races of mankind. These stand out 
from the common beliefs and practices of the ruder 
and even from the more civilized races of men, and 
we are puzzled to find an explanation of them. Be 
the explanation what it may, it was certainly a strenu- 
ous task to find an adequate conception of the power 
on whom men depended. That many mistakes would 
be made was to be expected, that the goal would be 
hard to reach is what might have been expected. 
That there should be many revolutions of thought 
and feeling, and many revolts, and many persecu- 
tions to put down revolt, may almost be taken for 
granted. For religion is the most precious posses- 
sion of man, and in the history of it and its changes 
we find enlisted the deepest feelings, the strongest 
passions, the brightest and the darkest aspects of 
human nature, its fiercest bigotry and its deepest 
love. It is an intensified history of the ordinary 
story of human life, and the usual motives which 
actuate men are here disclosed with every tone 
accentuated. The object sought for is the highest, 
and the search is the most strenuous, of all human 
efforts. 

The story of science is, also, one of errors and mis- 
takes. In fact, it is not so long ago since science was 
in its infancy. The crudest notions of man, and of 
the world in which he lived, abounded, and one of 



RELIGION 251 

Rome's foremost poets, who felt that he was quite 
equal to the making of a world, and who was fierce 
in his criticism of the gods, believed that the sun 
was only a few feet in diameter. We may read what 
passed for science in many of the sciences ; we may 
read of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, of phlogis- 
ton, and of many other curiosities of the history of 
science, and yet we do not go to our scientific friends 
and urge these mistakes as reasons why the possi- 
bility of scientific truth should be doubted. In truth, 
science has to rewrite itself almost every generation. 
The conceptions of chemistry have been revolution- 
ized within my own time. But the mistakes which 
science has made, and the imperfections which still 
cling to science, do not interfere with our belief in 
the existence of the objects with which science deals. 
Why should the mistakes which religion has made 
invalidate our persuasion of the great being who is 
the main object of religion .'' It is quite true that she 
has given forth in the course of time many partial, 
inadequate, even unworthy representations of the 
divine, but has not science given forth many inade- 
quate and unworthy representations of nature .'' Has 
not nature been regarded as lawless, uncertain, 
capricious, and we have overcome that view, and 
look on nature now as an ordered system, moving 
under law. But have we not corrected the first 
attempts of men to set forth the idea of God, and 
have we not now come to some conception of the idea 



252 THEISM 

of God not altogether unworthy of Him who is the 
maker of heaven and earth ? It does not seem to be 
a profitable exercise for science or religion to remem- 
ber the sins and faults of youth, each of the other. 
Let each be judged by the achievements of their 
maturity, and by the promise of further progress of 
which they may hold out a reasonable hope. 

Is it not time that the conflict should cease, or, at 
least, take another form } Is it not time to seek 
after something of a synthetic view, which shall 
gather together the elements contributed to the uni- 
fied knowledge of the world in which we live and the 
power manifested in it, by all the sciences and phi- 
losophies and theologies, which represent the ripest 
achievement of human thought.!* Conflict and con- 
troversy may be the way, or one way, by which we 
attain to clearness of thought and lucidity of concep- 
tion. Truth may advance in circles or curves, and 
advance may seem to be only retrogression, while it 
really moves in an upward spiral, toward a more 
complete form. Or there may have been an element 
neglected, necessary for the expression of the unity 
of truth, and that element may have to struggle for 
recognition, and its advocates may press it to the 
dislocation of the symmetry of the whole, and peace 
cannot be obtained till it finds due recognition. Look- 
ing back over the history of the struggle between 
competing ideals of life, between rival systems of 
philosophy, and opposing views of ethics, and con- 



RELIGION 253 

trasted systems of theology, we may find that each 
system has some elements worthy to have a place 
in the hierarchy of truth, fitted to represent the re- 
ality of things and persons in its adequate form. If 
our thoughts take a wider view and we look at the 
conflict between the scientific and the philosophic 
mind, and between both and the theological, we may 
ask ourselves whether these have not been looking 
at opposite sides of the shield ? A mere syncretic 
method is not advocated by me. I do not wish to 
shovel together all the contradictory notions that 
have found a place in ethical, philosophical, and theo- 
logical systems, and serve them up as the conciliation 
of differences, and the final product of rational in- 
vestigation. Eclecticism and syncretism do not play 
an important part in the history of human thought. 
But cross-fertilization is an important process in 
biology, and has beneficial consequence. 

May there not be cross-fertilization among the 
various organisms, the sum of which make up the 
organism of human knowledge, won by the pro- 
tracted labour of the ages .'' May we not take from 
the physical sciences what they can tell us of the 
laws and methods of the working of the physical 
world t May we not familiarize our minds with the 
stupendous spectacle of the physical forces keeping 
step with one another, each in the service of the 
other, and all working in long-drawn harmony as 
elements in one system t Surely the service of these 



254 THEISM 

sciences ought to be recognized, and the greatness 
of the order made plain to us by them, the coordi- 
nated harmony of all the parts, and the order of the 
whole should give us some thought of the power 
manifested in and through them all. That gives 
one element in our thought of God. Our thought 
of Him must widen itself to the recognition of the 
stupendous power at work in the universe, working 
by methods which so far man has understood, though 
much is still beyond his conception. Science shows 
us a related world bound in a system, the changes 
of which take place in an orderly way, the rhythm 
of which may be understood. This vision of the 
order, beauty, and harmony of the world is the con- 
tribution of science to religion and theology. It 
matters not that once religion was suspicious of law 
and the reign of law, that it fondly lingered on the 
thought of a personal government of the world, 
which seemed also a capricious government. Re- 
ligion has outgrown that mood, and it does not look 
for God in the absence of law, method, and order, it 
finds God in law, and rejoices in every discovery of 
science, and looks at such as a new discovery of the 
presence and the working of God. It still believes 
in a personal government of the world, but it has 
learned that will is steadfast and intelligent, not 
wilful and capricious. 

Science has helped theology to purify and extend 
its thought of God. It was bound to do so, for it 



RELIGION 255 

has revealed to us somewhat of the magnificence of 
the world in which we live. Lengthened in time and 
widened in space, filled with order and harmony in its 
onward sweep through the ages, the thought of all that 
science has disclosed must have widened our thought 
of God. Worlds beyond worlds and systems within 
systems, well our thoughts of the maker of the uni- 
verse ought to be greater than the thoughts of those 
who believed this little planet was the centre of all the 
universe. But the main achievement of science is 
the discovery of law, at least this is its main achieve- 
ment from the theological point of view. But science 
reveals to us still more as we wait and watch its work 
in the higher regions of its great endeavour. Through 
the ages one increasing purpose runs. Life prepared 
for, life appearing, life growing, developing, creatures 
appearing who are made to make themselves, and 
rational creaturehood appearing who develops the 
power of reading the story of the making of the 
world, all revealing a patient foreseeing intelligence 
content to labour and to wait in order to make a 
world fit to know, understand, and serve its maker. 
Biology makes its own contribution to the widening 
and deepening of our thought of God. He seems 
to win a way which can be understood, and, having 
once begun to work, He seems to keep to the method 
with which He began. It would seem as if the in- 
telligent understanding of His work and His method 
was an object to Him. He worked in such a fashion 



256 THEISM 

as would disclose itself to the patient inquiry of 
finite intelligence. So the slow process of the evo- 
lution of life is a process of revelation, or a dis- 
closure of the divine method of work, and thus a 
revelation of God. 

It is, however, in relation to the character and 
the history of rational being that we come to a 
deeper revelation of God; or, to use another word 
which has not so technical a meaning, it is in con- 
nection with history that we have a deeper mani- 
festation of God. Here we have larger discords 
yet a deeper harmony, more failures yet a higher 
success, mistakes innumerable in all departments 
of human action, yet each generation taking up the 
burden of the effort after truth, knowledge, and 
life, and working on in the hope of finding the 
kingdom of God. We need not again refer to the 
mistakes, failures, and sins of men through the gen- 
erations, for, after all, too much may be said of 
them. Ethics slowly advanced, morality came to 
some consciousness of itself, philosophy came with 
its searching questions and its partial answers, criti- 
cism arose to try all that could be tried, and through 
the conflict and the struggle, the still, small voice 
of conscience made itself increasingly heard until 
the ripened thought of men came to have some 
idea of what a worthy conception of God ought to 
be. It was stern work which had to be done — 
not merely to advance from age to age, but to deal 



RELIGION- 257 

with the attainments of former generations, to criti- 
cise inadequate conceptions which had not seemed 
inadequate to a former generation, to rise above the 
reluctance and unwilHngness to disturb inherited be- 
liefs, and to move onwards to the recognition of a 
moral ruler, judge, and loving friend of men. It 
was stem, and hard work, and it would not have 
attained the success it did attain if there had been 
no voice from beyond the veil and no pressure of 
God in history. 

The effort of philosophy is not merely man's 
work; it is the work of God too. Theology owes 
a large debt to philosophy ; it has always used the 
work of philosophy, and sometimes without due 
acknowledgment. But while religion and theology 
owe a large debt to science and philosophy, and 
have learned from them to deepen and widen their 
thought of God and man, they still have their own work 
to do, their own problem to solve, their own burden 
to bear, and these are harder than any other problem. 
They have to deal with the ultimate harmony and 
unity of the universe, with the unity of all things in 
the kingdom of God. They do not look on the unity 
and harmony as accomphshed; rather, it is the 
goal to be reached in the far future, when the 
world is made which as yet is only in the making. 
Religion and theology are grateful for the service 
of science and philosophy, which have been of un- 
speakable service ; they are grateful, too, for the in- 



25S THEISM 

cessant criticism of these worthy friends — a criticism 
not always friendly, sometimes indeed very candid, 
bitter, and contemptuous, but they are thankful, not- 
withstanding. For it is of the utmost importance, 
in so high an endeavour, to have every beUef tested 
to the uttermost, every assumption sifted, every argu- 
ment criticised, that nothing weak or unworthy may 
be suffered to remain. For anything weak, un- 
worthy, or unreasonable may have issues perilous to 
the success of the highest emprise ever undertaken 
by man. So we ask the help of science and phi- 
losophy for this great end, and we give the warning 
that we shall use their help for our own purpose. 
We do not seek a scientific or a philosophic solution 
of the problem, we have a deeper purpose than that. 
We will not accept from science merely an infinite 
and eternal energy, though we shall receive that as 
an element in our solution, nor will we accept from 
philosophy merely a universal substance, or a uni- 
versal self-consciousness and nothing more, or any 
other of those substitutes for God which philosophy 
is fond of presenting to us, though we take their 
contributions as elements in our construction. We 
shall not rest until we find a God who will satisfy our 
religious needs, as well as our scientific and rational 
aspirations. It is not enough for us to arrive at 
infinite power, wisdom, even infinite goodness, we 
seek a God who can speak to us and to whom we can 
speak, a God who is something for Himself, as well 



RELIGION 259 

as something for us, who can be the home of our 
life, and meet every aspiration, desire, and longing 
of the whole man. It is because we believe that the 
being whom we call God is all that we have described, 
and more than we can describe, that we welcome all 
the help of science and philosophy; for we need 
all the help we can get to make any approximation 
to the work which man most sorely needs. 



IX 



PHILOSOPHY IN ITS AGNOSTIC ASPECT: 
ITS POSTULATES, ITS CHARACTER, AND 
ITS TRUTH 

The philosophies in vogue and influence at present 
are mainly of two types, and, while these types have 
many subsidiary forms, they are mainly two. In 
both the idea of evolution has a predominating influ- 
ence, and plays a great part as an instrument for the 
solution of difficulties and as a fruitful point of view. 
True, they look at evolution from different ends of 
the telescope. The one philosophy of which the 
synthetic philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer may 
be taken as the type, looks at evolution from its 
simple and abstract beginnings, and seeks to deduce 
the actual world from them, by the use of such 
principles as "the instability of the homogeneous," 
"the multiplication of effects," and so on, and to 
some observers they seem to be engaged in the task 
of making something out of nothing. Evolution 
becomes the universal solvent, and in the last resort 
we must make any particular transition which is 
needed, under the threat that to suppose otherwise 
is to suppose that force does not persist. The other 

260 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 26 1 

type of philosophy may be briefly described as 
idealism, of which there are many expositions, and 
many expositors in your country and in ours. It looks 
at evolution from the other end, and judges it from 
the point of view of the goal to which evolution 
tends. In fact, idealism rules in the most of our 
universities in England and in Scotland, and the 
philosophical voices of America set forth the idealist 
view with great eloquence and power and with per- 
suasive force. The writers do not echo a British 
note, nor do they speak with a German accent; they 
have really done the work over again and have added 
to the idealist solution of the problem something 
distinctive and valuable. The typical name with us 
is that of Edward Caird, which is the most influential 
name in philosophy in Great Britain, and has been 
so for years. 

What help toward a solution of the permanent 
religious question do we obtain from these dominant 
types of philosophy. Not much from Mr. Spencer. 
He leaves us in an attitude of reverence before 
an unknowable, and presents religion as a mystery 
which must always remain a mystery and nothing 
more. Once in a late part of the lengthened ex- 
position of his system he seems to strike a more 
positive note, and gives an account of the object of 
religious veneration which is not merely negative. 
We have tried to read the " First Principles " in the 
light of the more recent exposition, and the last 



262 THEISM 

seems to go much farther than the first statement by 
him of the function and object of rehgion. They may 
be the same to Mr. Spencer, to me they seem to differ 
to the extent that the first statement is wholly nega- 
tive, while the last is partly positive. We take the 
more positive statement. " That internal energy 
which, in the experience of the primitive man was al- 
ways the immediate antecedent of changes wrought by 
him — that energy which, when interpreting external 
changes, he thought of along with those attributes of 
a human personality connected with it in himself ; is 
the same energy which, freed from anthropomorphic 
accompaniments, is now figured as the cause of all 
external phenomena. The last stage reached is 
recognition of the truth that force as it exists beyond 
consciousness, cannot be like what we know as 
force within consciousness; and that yet, as either 
is capable of generating the other, they must be 
different modes of the same. Consequently, the 
final outcome of that speculation commenced by the 
primitive man is that the Power manifested through- 
out the Universe, distinguished and material, is 
the same Power which in ourselves wells up under 
the form of consciousness." (" Ecclesiastical Insti- 
tutions," p. 839.) Another passage we quote, as 
it seems to leave us the hope that as evolution 
advances and man advances with it a knowledge of 
God may be within the reach of the developed man 
of the future. ** Occupied mth one or other diWsion 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 263 

of Nature, the man of science usually does not 
know enough of the other divisions even rudely to 
conceive the extent and complexity of their phenom- 
ena ; and supposing him to have adequate know- 
ledge of each, yet he is unable to think of them as a 
whole. Wider and stronger intellect may hereafter 
help him to form a vague consciousness of them 
in their totality. We may say that just as an 
undeveloped musical faculty, able only to appre- 
ciate a simple melody, cannot grasp the variously 
entangled passages and harmonies of a symphony, 
which in the mind of composers and conductor are 
unified into involved musical effects awakening far 
greater feeling than is possible to the musically un- 
cultured ; so, by further more evolved intelligences, 
the course of things now apprehensible only in part 
may be apprehensible altogether, with an accom- 
panying feeling as much beyond that of the present 
cultured man as his feeling is beyond that of the 
savage. 

" And this feeling is not likely to be decreased but 
to be increased by that analysis of knowledge which, 
while forcing him to agnosticism, yet continually 
prompts him to imagine some solution of the great 
enigma which he knows cannot be solved. Espe- 
cially must this be so when he remembers that the 
very notions, origin, cause, and purpose, are rela- 
tive notions belonging to human thought, which are 
probably irrelevant to the Ultimate Reality transcend- 



264 THEISM 

ing human thought; and when, though suspecting 
that explanation is a word without meaning when 
appHed to this ultimate reality, he yet feels com- 
pelled to think there must be an explanation. 

" But one truth must grow ever clearer, — the truth 
that there is an Inscrutable Existence everywhere 
manifested, to which he can neither find nor conceive 
either beginning or end. Amid the mysteries which 
become the more mysterious the more they are 
thought about, there will remain the one absolute 
certainty, that he is ever in presence of an Infinite 
and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." 
(pp. 842, 843.) 

We are glad to receive from Mr. Spencer the 
assurance of one "absolute certainty," that there is 
an infinite and eternal energy, and that it stands in 
relation to all things, namely, that all things proceed 
from it. There is also something to be thankful for 
in the recognition of the fact that the power that 
manifests itself, distinguished as material, is the same 
power which in ourselves wells up under the form of 
consciousness. It would appear that agnosticism, 
even in the presence of the ultimate reality, is not 
absolute. It can, at least it does, make some asser- 
tions about the reality. It exists, it is infinite and 
eternal, it is manifested in the material world, it is 
manifested in consciousness, and the agnostic knows 
these two to be the same ; and the agnostic can say 
that from this infinite and eternal energy all things 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 265 

proceed. The creed of agnosticism as set forth by 
Mr. Spencer is considerable. Far be it from us to 
seek to attenuate it, while we may wonder how on 
its own principles it came to make such assertions, — 
how do they reach the infinite and eternal, and how 
do they affirm the relationship between the ultimate 
reality and the finite manifestation of it.'* If the 
power is manifested, as Mr. Spencer says it is, is it 
not knowable, at least as far as it is manifested } If 
it is manifested in the material world and also in con- 
sciousness, can we not put these manifestations to- 
gether, and say something true and adequate about 
the ultimate reality in addition to the propositions 
of Mr. Spencer } What is manifested is revealed, and 
the character of the thing is given by the manifesta- 
tion, and we may speak about that. 

In these passages quoted from Mr. Spencer, and in 
certain obiter dicta of his elsewhere, he opens out for 
us paths into the unknowable which we may safely 
tread, and following his example we may make for 
ourselves wider and longer paths than he would 
allow. In fact, that has been done for us by a dis- 
tinguished follower of Mr. Spencer on this side. I 
do not know whether Mr. Fiske will allow me to 
call him a follower of Spencer, and so I will call him 
a distinguished exponent of a philosophy in many 
respects identical with the Spencerian philosophy. 
He has brought within limits the whole system of 
Spencer, and expressed it in clear and perspicuous 



266 THEISM 

language, and has brought within the reach of all, the 
leading principles of that philosophy which has many 
exponents at present, the greatest of whom is Mr. 
Fiske. His "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy" has 
been familiar to me for years, and I read it yet. In the 
later part of the exposition Mr. Fiske seems to have 
worked at the subject of evolution for himself, and to 
have come to conclusions rather more positive than 
those of Mr. Spencer. In the Preface to his little 
book on the ''Idea of God," Mr. Fiske says, "Nothing 
of fundamental importance in * Cosmic Philosophy ' 
needed changing, but a new chapter needed to be 
written, in order to show how the doctrine of evolu- 
tion, by exhibiting the development of the highest 
spiritual human quahties as the goal toward which 
God's creative work has from the outset been tend- 
ing, replaces man in his old position of headship in 
the universe, even as in the days of Dante and Aqui- 
nas. (The " Idea of God," Preface, p. 20.) To me as 
to other readers of " Cosmic Philosophy " it seemed 
that Mr. Fiske had left little room for theology except 
in the Spencerian sense, and he had certainly disposed 
of purpose in every sense of the term. His "Cosmic 
Philosophy " added nothing to the system of Spencer, 
and left us in the presence of an omnipresent energy. 
Like other readers, I welcomed that teleological 
passage, I am about to quote, and I do not care to 
inquire how much of " Cosmic Philosophy " would 
require to be rewritten to make it consistent with 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 267 

this and other passages. " The teleological instinct 
in man cannot be suppressed or ignored. The 
human soul shrinks from the thought that it is with- 
out kith or kin in all this wide universe. Our reason 
demands that there shall be a reasonableness in the 
constitution of things. This demand is a fact in our 
psychical nature as positive and irrepressible as our 
acceptance of geometrical axioms and our rejection 
of whatever controverts such axioms. No ingenuity 
of argument can bring us to believe that the infinite 
Sustainer of the universe will " put us to permanent 
intellectual confusion." There is in every earnest 
thinker a craving after a final cause ; and this crav- 
ing can no more be extinguished than our belief 
in objective reality. Our belief in what we call 
the evidence of our senses is less strong than our 
faith that in the orderly sequence of events there is 
a meaning which our minds could fathom were they 
only vast enough." (pp. 137-8.) 

It would appear, therefore, that according to Mr. 
Spencer and to Mr. Fiske, there is a meaning in 
the universe, were our minds only great enough to 
grasp it. Mr. Spencer holds out a hope that in the 
future, whether distant or near he does not say, but 
in the future there may appear a mind to which 
the secret of the universe may be open, and Mr. 
Fiske has restored to us the hope of learning the 
meaning of the universe which is there already. 
Agnosticism is thus so far departed from by two of 



268 THEISM 

its greatest advocates. The unknowable has shrunk 
to smaller dimensions, and it is only the fear of 
anthropomorphism that seems to keep them from 
attenuating it still further. If a wider and stronger 
intellect may yet arise which may have a vague con- 
sciousness of the world in its totality, we may work 
on with the assurance that there is nothing in the 
totality considered in itself which makes it unknow- 
able. Even human intelligence as it is, may come to 
have an apprehension of the meaning of the universe 
and its cause. 

With anthropomorphism I have dealt elsewhere, 
and have endeavoured to show that all science and 
philosophy are anthropomorphic, and it is not possi- 
ble for the human being to be other than anthro- 
pomorphic. Those who think they get beyond 
anthropomorphism have simply interpreted the uni- 
verse in terms borrowed from the lowest parts of 
human experience. (See *' Is God Knowable } " 
Chap. III.) It is largely from men who approach 
the problem from the scientific side that we hear 
the charge of anthropomorphism. For example, Mr. 
Graham in his " Creed of Science " puts the matter 
thus : " In particular this conception of God will not 
suit the theology that insists on ascribing to Him the 
attributes, at once metaphysical and specially human, 
of personality and consciousness ; the former being 
the precise one that it is so difficult to get any clear 
conception of even in ourselves, and both, especially 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 269 

consciousness, being as Fichte and other philoso- 
phers have irrefutably demonstrated, inapplicable 
and directly contradictory to the notion of an Abso- 
lute Being. For consciousness and personality, what- 
ever else they imply, clearly imply the notion of limits 
and conditions, neither of which can without contra- 
diction be applied to an absolute and unconditioned 
Being, to a transcendent tremendous and universal 
power, the chief fact in our knowledge of which is 
precisely its freedom from the limits which govern 
and bind our finite being." (" Creed of Science," 
p. 364.) I have for a long time regarded with 
wonder and admiration sentences like the one now 
quoted, and many such may be culled from the 
pages of the current philosophies of this type. I 
have wondered that the writers of such sentences 
have not seen that they contradict themselves. At 
all events that they have fallen into confusion of 
thought, when they speak of being at all. Being is 
a determinate phrase, with a definite meaning, and 
that is a limitation. When they define it as power, 
that, on their own terms, is also a Hmitation. Still 
greater are the limitations set forth by the terms 
absolute, unconditioned, tremendous, and universal; 
from their point of view all these predicates involve 
limitations just as much as or more than is implied 
by consciousness and personality. 

They proceed on the assumption that predicates 
are limitations, as in one sense they are, but from 



270 THEISM 

any rational point of view, to be is more than not to 
be, and the larger the number of predicates ascribed 
to a subject the greater is that subject. Deferring 
for a time the discussion of whether infinitude and 
personahty are inconsistent with each other, let us 
ask what help we get from science that has become 
a metaphysic, toward an intelligent solution of the 
theistic question. From Mr. Spencer and Mr. Fiske 
there is some help, as we have pointed out already, 
in the insistence by them of the existence of a power 
to whose might we can set no limit. The whole 
of things proceeds from that infinitive and eternal 
energy. We are afraid that Mr. Spencer would go 
no further, and while he denies that we can infer 
anything of the power and the character of it from 
the manifestations within and beyond consciousness, 
he yet seems disposed to affirm that the power is 
immanent in the manifestations, and that the force 
is persistent along the lines of its manifestations, 
and has no other mode of persistence. It is, indeed, 
difficult to be sure of his meaning, and one can 
hardly say whether he has thought out the ques- 
tion. He is for the most part contented with the 
general assertion that the eternal power is unknow- 
able. But Mr. Fiske has spoken on this very point 
and spoken to the purpose. " Hence to the query 
suggested at the beginning of this chapter whether 
the Deity can be identified with the Cosmos, we 
must return a very different answer from that re- 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 2/1 

turned by the Pantheist. The *open secret,' in so 
far as secret, is God — in so far as open, is the 
world ; but in thus regarding the ever changing uni- 
verse of phenomena as the multiform revelation of 
an Omnipresent Power, we can in no wise identify 
the power with its manifestations. To do so would 
reduce the entire argument to nonsense. From first 
to last it has been implied that while the universe 
is the manifestation of Deity, yet is Deity something 
more than the universe. The doctrine which we 
have here expounded is, therefore, neither more nor 
less than theism, in its most pronounced, consistent, 
and unqualified form. It is quite true that the word 
'theism,' as ordinarily employed, connotes the 
ascription of an anthropomorphic personality to the 
Deity." (''Cosmic Philosophy," Vol. II., p. 424.) Mr. 
Fiske, like Professor Graham, and all others who 
approach the question from the merely scientific 
side, will not allow us to ascribe the attributes of 
personality and consciousness to the deity. He is 
quite decided on that head. Again and again he 
tells us that " personality and infinity are terms 
expressive of ideas which are mutually incompatible. 
The pseud-idea, 'infinite person,' is neither more 
nor less than the pseud-idea circular triangle." 
(pp. 408-9.) 

Thus, on the whole, while we gain something from 
the statement of Mr. Fiske that the deity is some- 
thing more than the universe, we know nothing of 



2/2 THEISM 

what the "more" may be. We do not know, in- 
deed, we may never know, whether we can ever 
come into the fellowship of the divine, or whether 
the divine can care for us ; and the divine becomes 
for us on these terms a term from the meaning of 
which all thoughts of providence, guidance, govern- 
ment of the world, are rigidly excluded, as well as 
other notions more characteristic of reUgion. We 
are not prepared to pay so great a price, even for 
the doctrine of evolution, though we are persuaded 
that the doctrine of evolution is not essentially tied 
to the doctrine of the unknowable. That it is so is 
only the private opinion of Mr. Spencer and Mr. 
Fiske, and the evolutionary theory in its essentials 
may go along with the idea of a God who may be 
known and has made Himself known. The doctrine 
of the *' unknowable " is the fruit of a theory of 
knowledge, and after that theory is removed, the 
gain we have got may still be retained. As we re- 
marked already, the theory of Mr. Spencer and Mr. 
Fiske is refuted by their own practice. They define 
the ''unknowable," and the one calls it an infinite 
and eternal energy, and the other calls it a power 
to which no limit in time and space is conceivable. 
In the use of these phrases they have transgressed 
against their own canons, and have ventured to 
speak of infinite and eternal in positive terms as 
if they had a real content which could be known as 
positive. What, then, becomes of the contention 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 273 

that the infinite and eternal are wholly negative ? 
Are we to suppose that when we apply the words 
" infinite " and "• eternal" to energy they negative the 
positive content of energy ? Nay, for they merely 
negative the idea of any limit to the energy and the 
power. We have simply to carry out this statement 
of theirs in all directions and we get rid of a great 
part, of in fact the greatest part, of the agnostic 
argument. What right have they, on their own 
terms, to speak of the infinite and eternal in any 
way .-* They have no right to use negative terms to 
enhance a positive content. 

Further, have they not transcended the limits of 
human knowledge, when they speak after this fash- 
ion, that is, the limits set by themselves .'' If they 
transcend the limit and extend our finite idea of 
force to its ideal, why find fault with me when I 
use the same privilege } If they raise power to its 
ideal and make it infinite, I am going to do the same 
thing, and to say there is an ideal of righteousness 
in the universe, there is truth eternal and beauty 
infinite and harmony unspeakable ; and in fact I am 
just to take all I know of finite qualities, properties, 
and relations, and I am to raise them to their ideals, 
and hold them to be reahzed in the infinite and 
eternal being from which all things proceed. Why 
should these distinguished men be allowed to raise 
one property to its ideal because it suits their theory ? / 
and why should all others be characterized as an- 



274 THEISM 

thropomorphic if they use the same privilege ? But 
I do not press the argumetitum ad hominem, there 
is something better to do. 

Let us look back from the point where Mr. 
Spencer leaves us, and let us also look round and 
up to find what worlds he has taken away. Taking 
the great scientific movement of thought which may 
be represented by Mr. Spencer, let us observe 
how far it has brought us and where it leaves us. 
We had thought that we had stood in the middle 
world of being, with God above us and the world 
beneath us, and in most intimate relations with both, 
and we thought that the full interpretation of our 
own experience would give us the key to the know- 
ledge of what is beneath us, of what is around us, and 
of what is above us. Well, but with the advance of 
science, and specially with the coming of the theory 
of evolution, we are left in the sad predicament that, 
while there may be something above us, we can 
never know what it is. Our highest and our best 
are expressly shut out from the exercise of any 
function in the ultimate interpretation of the uni- 
verse. Our kinship with what is beneath us is fully 
brought out, and great stress is laid on it, no doubt 
to our advantage, for all truth is beneficial. A vast 
body of truth has been brought home to us ; we are 
sharers in countless structures, organs, and functions 
with the grades of being beneath us. The world 
of nature cannot be regarded as alien to us, and 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 2/5 

whether we were moulded out of the dust or evolved 
by slow degrees through an ascending series of lower 
beings, in either case we must feel a true kinship 
with all that is beneath us, and a true reverence for 
it. Our knowledge of all that is beneath us has 
come in like a flood, wave upon wave, in all the 
sciences, and as a consequence our thoughts in 
general and of the methods by which truth may be 
known are dominated by the methods and the aims 
which have been so successful in this single region 
of truth. Thus we are inclined to judge of ourselves 
and of all that is above us by methods and measures 
taken from things below us. This tendency grows 
by what it feeds on, and the explanation of the uni- 
verse by what is below man strives to become com- 
plete, coherent, and exhaustive. 

The most complete expression of this tendency is to 
be found in the works of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Fiske. 
While they formally protest that there may be 
something higher than intelligence at work in the 
world, as a matter of fact every principle of explana- 
tion found in their works has been drawn from the 
world beneath man. The persistence of force is 
the foundation principle, and from it all is derived^ 
As we advance in the process of explanation there 
are introduced successive simplicities, which form the 
elements which by differentiation and integration 
proceed on their way to further complications ; and 
so the story goes on until we come to the perfectly 



2/6 THEISM 

yf evolved society of Mr. Spencer as set forth in the 
" Data of Ethics." Here is an evolution up to man, 
and no further. Measures and procedures taken ex- 
clusively from the world below us are held sufficient 
for the explanation of things, and even the fruit and 
flower of personal and social life are derivatives from 
what is below us. Man is left with no higher, with 
nothing nobler than himself. But is there not the 
infinite and eternal energy left to us, and the blind 
and blank adoration of the unknowable .'' Yes, but is 
that higher, greater, nobler than I am } No, for an 
infinite that does not know itself, that has no purpose, 
no aim, no way of making itself known, is not higher 
than man, it is lower. The theory of Mr. Spencer 
is not even zoomorphic, it is drawn solely from 
physics. Or rather it is drawn from the lowest 
aspect of human experience, that of our simplest 

\ experience of resistance. 

Still there is the irresistible belief that we do stand 
in the middle between what is below and what is above 
us, and the knowledge of this beUef must lead us 
upwards or downwards. Man always has found it 
difficult to be upright when he has disregarded the 
knowledge of God. Take away that ideal and man 
immediately becomes retrogressive. It was always so, 
and it is more so to-day. Formerly he thought he 
was a being apart, separate from the other beings of 
the earth, separately formed, able to pursue a sepa- 
rate destiny. But now he finds that in his physical 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 277 

structure he is not widely separate from what is lower, 
and in many other respects he is closely akin to the 
higher animals, and the full force of these scientific 
discoveries press upon him to his undoing, if he can- 
not reenforce his conviction of his uniqueness by 
considerations of endowments shared by none of the 
other creatures. To restore him to himself, to lift 
him upwards, and to enable him to realize that better 
and higher self after which he aspires, there is needed 
the sure hope of the knowledge of an actual God in 
whom is realized the ideal of truth, life, knowledge, 
and action, who alone can raise him to the goal 
which he dimly foresees as possible, and which he 
longs to make real. 

Thus we need to supplement the story of the 
evolution up to man, by the story of a moral evolu- 
tion of man up to the ideal he has attained, and to 
show that the story of ethical evolution has a 
method and law of its own. There is also the story 
of spiritual evolution to be told, whereby man has so 
far reached the stage of self-knowledge, self-reverence, 
and self-control. There is still more the story of 
religious evolution, a more difficult story to tell though 
inextricably interwoven with the others, — the story of 
the purification and elevation of man's belief in God 
until he came to believe in the living God, the maker 
of heaven and earth, the upholder of all that is, the 
source, the guide, and the goal of all things, of whom, 
for whom, and through whom are all things. Nor do 



y 



278 THEISM 

I believe that the process of evolution in any sphere 
has taken place without the help of Him Whom they 
call the unknowable Power from which all things 
proceed. The activity of the Eternal, call Him by 
what name you may, is the postulate of every theory 
of evolution. It is so when you have attenuated it 
to the idea of persistence. And it is much more so 
when you give to the conception of God its full value. 
Why, I ask, forbid us to find the realization of all our 
ideals in the infinite and the eternal, when you have 
permitted yourselves to realize your ideal of energy in 
the infinite and the eternal ? I do not find any worthy 
answer to that question, and no answer at all save a 
reference to a theory of knowledge which makes 
knowledge impossible. 

In the experience of mankind, so far back as 
we have any knowledge of that experience, there 
is the belief in a higher power, on whom man felt 
his dependence, and that power was believed to be a 
power making for righteousness, interested in truth, 
working for the growth of goodness, taking measures 
for the suppression of wrong-doing, and evil of all 
kinds. There is a belief in a righteous ruler of the 
world who had the right and the authority to govern, 
and the right, also, to enforce his will by the most 
terrible sanctions. The actual government of the 
world of men, as it can be traced through history, 
seemed to confirm that belief, and to show an actual 
government of the world according to ethical law. 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 2/9 

The power above us was on the side of virtue, good- 
ness, truth, and righteousness; and on the reading of 
events, through a lengthened period, it seemed to hold 
true that where the ethical qualities of self-restraint, 
self-government, by high aims and purposes, purit}^, 
goodness, love, and other ethical qualities have be- 
come less and less, there followed consequences of 
a grave and miserable kind. The presages of con- 
science seemed to be confirmed by the actual facts of 
human experience as these are recorded in history. 
Then there are the reflections of man on his own life 
in its intellectual, ethical, and religious aspects as these 
were present in his experience. It seemed to him 
that intellectually he was related to an external world, 
in intercourse with which his life of feeling, thinking, 
and activity came to fruition. The existence of an 
external world, in connection with which he could 
realize his purpose and his character, became one 
of his assured beliefs, and in acting on that belief his 
life became one of realized activity. However we 
may interpret the external world, it is confessedly 
there, and in intercourse with it life realizes itself. 
But the external world does not exhaust the beings 
with whom we have intercourse. There is the world 
of our fellow-men, who are more to us, and who play 
a larger part in the evolution of our personality, than 
is accomplished by our fellowship with the external 
world. From man we obtained language to enable us 
to think and to give expression to our thought, lessons 



28o THEISM 

of experience not transmitted by mere hereditary de- 
scent, but handed down as a treasure of human feel- 
ing, aspiration, achievement, a record of noble aims 
and deeds expressed in thoughts that breathe and 
words that burn ; we obtained in addition the love that 
blessed our infancy, the care that guarded our youth, 
the patient forethought that planned and carried out 
our education, the wise affection that looked forward 
to our future and taught us the habit of obedience to 
what was wiser and better than we, as the sure way 
to self-control and to a life of fruitful endeavour and 
assured work, the atmosphere charged with the tra- 
dition of the ages, which we breathed in our home, in 
the school, college, university ; these and many other 
influences played on us and helped to make us what 
we are, and are we to question or doubt the reality 
of those intellectual, ethical, and spiritual influences ? 
No, we do not doubt the existence and validity of 
these. 

But pass on now and inquire into the validity of 
the object on which our religious life is fed, and you 
meet with a different mode of treatment of that object. 
Nay, it is not our religious life alone, it is our higher 
ethical life as well that has its postulates called into 
question. One of the postulates of our moral life is 
that we are in relation to an objective moral authority 
of perfect holiness, goodness, righteousness, and love, 
who has the right to control us, guide us, cherish us, 
and reward us. Without this postulate the infinite 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 28 1 

character of duty is never adequately realized. With- 
out this objective authority who has the right to 
command our conscience, we can never rise to the 
great height of our moral caUing, and the word 
"ought" without this authority will never reach its 
transcendent significance. We may try — it has been 
often tried — to attenuate the meaning of the word 
"ought," to substitute for its categorical imperative 
some lesser derivative, such as, if you desire the end 
you must use the means ; or it may be contended that 
the oughtness that constrains a man is the inherited 
custom of countless generations ; but after it is atten- 
uated so it comes back in its august authoritative- 
ness, and confronts us with its awful benignity and 
says, "You ought." And we bow in silence before 
the majesty of moral law, and recognize in our best 
moments that this is the voice of the supreme. Duty 
is itself infinite. I appeal to the voice of our con- 
sciousness, and I ask how is it that we feel that we 
can never realize our ideal of duty, how is it that we 
find that ideal growing as we cUmb higher, that the 
more we attain the farther removed from us seems 
the ideal of duty which is our ideal } This is the uni- 
versal testimony of the human consciousness, that, 
no matter what the ideal of life and duty is, or may 
be, whether it be that of the cultured or the uncul- 
tured, he finds himself ever baffled in his striving 
to attain it. 

Is not this one of the pathways that lead to God, 



282 THEISM 

and one of the infinites which God has put within 
the human heart ? What is this ideal of duty, this 
imperative feeling of obligation, this conscious con- 
straint that bids us to go on even when we have 
found our most earnest strivings baffled, and our 
best efforts ineffective, unless it is the call to us of 
an infinite perfection that really cares for us, and 
the prompting of a love that is supreme, that we 
should remember our eternity, and be worthy of 
bearing the responsibility of being a rational, self- 
conscious, ethical, and spiritual being, who can by 
divine help determine himself to the realization of his 
ideal in character and life. It is a great position, this 
of a rational self-conscious, ethical being, and the 
risk of failure in the trial to realize the personality is 
great. It is the task of all of us. To live is, indeed, 
for all of us, to form ideals and to fall short of them, 
and ever to realize that there is a contrast between 
what is and what ought to be. In all spheres of 
human activity this is so, we can never state a truth 
in all its fulness and accuracy, nor put into form the 
beauty that haunts us ; we labour to make our prac- 
tical action embody our ideal of what a perfect action 
ought to be, and we fail ; we cannot even write as we 
see we ought to do ; and in our moral action and life 
the good that we would we do not, and the imper- 
fections and defects we would avoid, if we could, 
cling to us through all our life. 

Yet to our finite and baffled existence there comes 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 283 

the persuasion that there is a complete and perfect 
life, a grander world than the present, a conviction 
that this world and this life is not the whole. Our 
ideals imperatively demand realization. Our im- 
perfect knowledge leads us to the hope that there 
is a knowledge that is perfect, an explanation that 
makes the rationality of the whole apparent to a 
mind for which the whole is. The isolated frag- 
ments of our existence, even in their isolation, cause 
us to think of a complete and perfect beauty and 
symmetry, in which the visions of harmony and 
beauty that dimly float before the imaginations of 
the best and purest of the sons of men have their 
complete fulfilment. Beauty and harmony, grace 
of outline and harmony of parts, are with us here, 
and our aesthetic convictions demand a sphere in 
which they will be satisfied. Above all, in the moral 
sphere man sees a hand that beckons, a vision that 
invites, an ideal that draws him on, and on the reverse 
side a pure and holy power that warns and sternly 
forbids those actions and inchnations that lead men 
to become false to the highest moral ideal they know. 
Thus while we are in the midst of the perishing, the 
transient, and fragmentary, we are so constituted 
as to demand the imperishable, the abiding, and the 
whole; in one word, man's greatest need is God, in 
whom all ideals meet and are realized. 

We need God on all sides of our manifold life, — 
intellectually, aesthetically, morally, religiously. God 



284 THEISM 

alone can draw forth all the powers of man into 
harmonious action. If one may use the phrase, God 
is the environment of man, in intercourse with whom 
man can attain to perfection. Shall the need of man 
for the infinite and the eternal be limited merely to 
one aspect, and that not the highest } Shall we say 
that there is energy, and declare all else to be un- 
knowable } Are we to look up to a lonely universe, 
and in all the higher spheres of being be driven to 
think that we have no kith and kin in the world 
above us .<* Is the world above and beyond us, as 
Shelley says, "A wide, gray, lampless, dark, un- 
peopled world t " No, the history of humanity, sad 
though it be, proves that there is a Being who is 
above them, interested in them, caring for them, 
who allowed Himself to be thought of by them in 
such forms and terms as they could use to describe 
the highest and the best, and from that lowly and 
inadequate beginning strove to lead them onwards 
and upwards to higher, truer, and more adequate 
thoughts and conceptions of Him. In the earUer 
days men sought for their highest and best in the 
external world of nature, and seemed to exhaust the 
possibilities of earth and sea and sky, in order to find 
a fitting expression for the Divine; and they were 
not satisfied, for the world-idea could not adequately 
represent the Divine. Then they turned to the idea 
of their own intelligent, social, and ethical life, and 
sought for the highest and best conceptions wrought 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 285 

in them by their personal, social, and civic life, and 
strove to think of the Divine in terms borrowed from 
these ideals. It did not satisfy, though it led them 
to worthier thoughts of God. There was something 
gained when the phenomena of personal, social, and 
state life were taken as the material of their thought 
of God, for it led them to think of God as the 
meaning of the social union, its source, and its goal. 
The actual life of man in social union led to that 
thought which we find in Greek and Roman ci\'iliza- 
tion, that gods and men formed one community, and 
were in relation to each other. 

But the growing intelhgence of men, and their 
higher organization, and their advancing morality, 
led them on to further striving. Rehgion is not sat- 
isfied with the solutions of intelligence, nor with the 
sanctions of ethics, nor with that conception of God 
which, perhaps, might satisfy our speculative, our 
aesthetic, and our ethical activity. She must find a 
God who realizes her own ideal. So in every age 
rehgion, while taking note of all that is accomplished 
in science, philosophy, and ethics, sets men to work 
anew, for she must solve the problem from her own 
point of view, with her own postulates, and from her 
own data. The work must be done over again, and 
she is not satisfied until she has worked up the ma- 
terial derived from the sciences and philosophies 
into a new and higher synthesis which is all her own. 
She is not contented with a philosophy of rehgion, 



286 THEISM 

nor will she consent to be reduced to an aspect of 
philosophy ; rather her imperious and imperative de- 
mand is that science and philosophy shall toil in her 
service. For religion is highest and most central, 
and has, or ought to have, the controlling position in 
life. Religion is the sanction of morality; yes, but 
it is more than the sanction of morality. When it 
becomes a mere sanction of morality, it fares ill with 
religion and morahty. Philosophy may be satisfied 
with such a conception of God as will help her to 
solve the problems of thought and life which are 
confessedly philosophical ; science may be satisfied 
with such a conception of God as will help her to 
conceive the order of the universe, and help her to 
think of the realm of law as real ; and ethics may be 
contented with the recognition of moral law as issuing 
forth from a sovereign, of infinite power and wisdom, 
who has imposed an ethical law on all intelligent 
agents as the condition of their existence in a realm of 
rational beings. But a God who is only the cause 
of order, the presupposition of knowledge, the source 
of moral order, is utterly insufficient to satisfy the 
religious demands of man. 

So religion ever sets men to toil anew in order to 
reach God, if haply they can find Him. Men must 
find God, and the God we find must satisfy all our 
needs ; the craving for guidance, the thirst for right- 
eousness, the striving after truth, and the longing for 
purity. Specially does religion demand a God vrho 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 287 

is something, and can do something, who can come 
near to men in a personal way, and speak to them 
words which they can understand. Here we come 
to the crux of the whole matter, to that point where 
religion must ever take her stand, and absolutely 
refuse to accept the solutions pressed on her accept- 
ance by science and philosophy. What some of 
these are we shall see in the concluding chapter. At 
present our aim is to say that religion can never 
accept a solution that casts the world into the life of 
God, and makes the states and changes of the world 
to be states and changes of Him. God is for religion 
more than the universe, and He has ways of activity 
and of manifestation not measured by the move- 
ments of the universe, and not limited by its ongoing. 
In other words, a postulate of religion is the tran- 
scendence of God. 

No doubt the task is a tremendous one that re- 
ligion sets to man. We recognize, also, that science 
and philosophy have not made the performance of 
the task an easy one. But it is a task to which 
we must gird ourselves generation after generation. 
We try to think it is possible to construct a thought 
of God, as One in Whom all things and persons 
live and move and have their being, and yet as a 
God who has a life in Himself, for Himself, and to 
Himself. It is comparatively easy to reach the 
immanence of God in the world ; in fact, that con- 
ception has been reached by many routes, in many 



288 THEISM 

ways. That mysterious power which is both the 
path and the path goers, which is everything and 
nothing, meets us in the speculations of Laotze, in 
the existence without a predicate, which is an Ind- 
ian form of mysticism ; and on the subjective side, 
meets us again in the self of all selves, meets us 
in the anima mundi, and in a thousand other forms 
in the history of speculation, ancient and modern. 
It is not a solution hard to reach, for it has been 
reached so often, and reappears so frequently in the 
history of human thought. Religion is never satis- 
fied with a pantheistic solution, let it take whatso- 
ever form it may. For reUgion must have a God 
who can speak, who can reveal Himself, not only 
as the power by whom planets gravitate and stars 
shine, by whose strength the worlds are maintained 
in being, and living things have their life and activ- 
ity, but religion demands a Being, who, though He 
is not an object among other objects, yet is still an 
object. 

Thus religion must look at the problems and so- 
lutions of science and philosophy from its own point 
of view, and in the light of its own imperative needs. 
And she has as good a right as they ; the only rele- 
vant question is can she make her contention good } 
At all events, religion has under the guidance of her 
own postulates entered into human life, transformed 
and transfigured it, and made it holy, sacred, and 
august. She has made every man feel, as nothing 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 289 

else has made him feel, that life is a sacred trust, 
given to him for eternal ends ; that there is a pur- 
pose for every man which every individual must 
realize for himself and in himself, or otherwise it 
will never be realized. No one else can take the 
place of any man, no one can do his work, and if 
he be a failure, the wealth of the universe is so far 
lessened. This purpose is not formed by the man 
himself, he feels that it is formed for him by Another 
with whom he has to do, and it is gradually revealed 
to him as he faithfully strives to follow the light and 
do the work which he recognizes he must do. In 
his life calling, in his daily work, whatever that work 
may be, a man whom religion has grasped, feels that 
he is in the presence of One high, pure, holy, to 
Whom he belongs. Whose authority is absolute, 
Whose power is sovereign, and Whose care over 
him is most minute, and Whose interest in him is 
unspeakable. This is one of the most familiar of 
human experiences, and who shall say that it has 
no roots in reality } 

Suppose, then, we take this as an actual experience, 
and ask ourselves how rehgion may state its de- 
mands .'' Let us think of one omnipotent, all-wise, 
all-loving, who in power, love, and wisdom made 
the worlds, and who set Himself to make a crea- 
tion to which He could communicate Himself. This 
is the central thought of your great American 
thinker, Jonathan Edwards, who ever strove to set 
u 



290 THEISM 

forth God as a Being who strives to communicate 
Himself to His creation. Looking back on the 
history of the creation as we are able to read it, it 
may be fruitfully looked at as the story of the mak- 
ing of a world, which could receive the self-com- 
munication of the living God. God gave Himself 
to the universe as the universe was able to receive 
Him. To the inorganic world as immanent power 
and order, to the organic world as life, growth, and 
purpose, to the world made in His own image, He 
gave Himself as intelligence, self -consciousness, self- 
guidance, ethical purpose and freedom, and above 
all as the religious spirit of truth and love and grace, 
so that when they attained to purity of heart they 
might see God. 

Religion is thus not without a view and a purpose 
and a goal. For it looks back on the history of the 
past as a story of divine toil and striving toward 
the making of a world to which God could commu- 
nicate Himself and which would have the capacity 
of receiving Him. This is a kind of world which 
could not be produced by a fiat, if, indeed, any world 
could be. It is a kind of world which could only 
be made by its own cooperation. To take it in its 
highest reaches, the world to which God could com- 
municate Himself, is a world of ethical, self-con- 
scious beings, who under the leading of a divine 
training and education, through discipline and trial, 
would build themselves to a character, and mould 



AGNOSTIC PHILOSOPHY 291 

themselves on an ideal made known to them, and who 
would be persuaded that they were made for God 
and that they could be themselves only when they 
found themselves in God. Thus religion regards the 
unity of things not as accomplished or real in the 
past or in the present ; it lies before her vision as a 
goal to be accomplished in the future when the mak- 
ing of the world is complete, and a creation is formed 
that can be filled with all the fulness of God. Reli- 
gion must find a way of conceiving the relation of 
God to the world which will conserve the freedom of 
God and leave Him free to enter into these closer 
relations with a people fitted to receive them, which 
can represent that fellowship which alone deserves 
the name of religion. 

We do not in any way interfere with the work of 
science, which is based on the intelligibility and ration- 
ality of the universe, nor do we say anything against 
the striving of philosophy to think the universe as 
one, and to regard it as a related system existing for 
thought. We simply take care of our own postu- 
lates, and say to them that religion cannot, will not, 
place the world-idea in the position of the idea of 
God. We must ever hold that these are distinct. 
As we saw, Mr. Spencer, finding that the belief in im- 
mortality and the belief in God have ever gone to- 
gether in human history, has insisted that one of them 
should be derived from the other, so science and 
philosophy have insisted that the idea of the world 



292 THEISM 

and the idea of God should be identified, and this 
has in fact been the real issue of the age-long contro- 
versy which religion has had to wage for its existence. 
It is the issue to-day. Never in the history of human 
thought has the identification of the world-idea with 
the idea of God been presented in so alluring and 
persuasive a form as at the present hour. Never has 
philosophy taken so fair and fascinating a form as 
it does now, and never has it given so generous a 
recognition to the moral, social, and religious ideals 
of men. Never has philosophy insisted so strongly on 
the truth, beauty, and worth of the highest ideals of 
religion as under the inspiration of Hegel, one of the 
greatest, if not the greatest, of philosophic thinkers. 
But while we gladly admit and, indeed, assert this, 
and much more than this, we must sadly turn to our 
own path and take up the burden of our own work ; 
for the idealistic philosophy makes religion to be 
simply an aspect of itself, and does not leave us a 
God into whose fellowship we may enter, in whose 
service we may find perfect freedom. For we can 
come to Him, and He can come to us, only by the 
way of the works He has made, by the institutions He 
has founded, and by the ways of the universe which 
is His only manifestation. We need a God who can 
speak to us, and if He cannot speak directly to us, 
the greater and better part, the flower and fruit of 
religion will wither and die. 



X 



IDEALIST PHILOSOPHY: ITS MERITS AND 
ITS DEFECTS ; THE CONCEPTION OF 
GOD ; HOW SHALL WE CONCEIVE THE 
SYNTHETIC UNITY OF GOD, MAN, AND 
THE WORLD? — THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Religion is possible only if man feels that he is re- 
lated to God. A God above us, but also a God who 
is within us, is a perennial belief of man, common to 
all religions. It has obtained the most complete ex- 
pression in the highest religion known, Christianity, 
yet it has been present in every religion. God as the 
universal father and all men as His children, this is 
the expression of the relationship between God and 
man. It is the general expression of the relationship 
that we take at present, without entering on the par- 
ticular doctrines that articulate it into a scheme. Nor 
at this stage do we dwell on the proof of the state- 
ment that this appears in every religion. For this has 
received proof in almost every book dealing with the 
history of religions. We may take it for granted here. 

The relationship between God and man, which is 
a postulate of the religious life, has found various 
forms of expression, and has demanded many means 

293 



294 THEISM 

for its satisfaction. The need for fellowship is im- 
perative. Yet as religious thought advanced, and the 
conception of God advanced with the growth of hu- 
man intelligence and character, the difficulty of fellow- 
ship appeared to become greater and greater. For 
God seemed to become farther and farther removed 
from man in proportion as man conceived Him in 
higher and higher terms. He became in man's 
conception of Him, the all-knowing, almighty, all- 
present One, in Whom all things lived and moved and 
had their being, and His ethical attributes became 
more and more distinct ; justice, hoUness, righteous- 
ness, truthfulness, and love came to be predicated of 
Him, and these conceptions of Him grew with the 
religious experience of men, until they found it diffi- 
cult to conceive the possibiUty of communion with 
God. The higher the conception of God, the greater 
is the difficulty of conceiving the possibility of fellow- 
ship and communion. The heavens of heavens can- 
not contain Him, shall He indeed dwell with man on 
the earth } This is an ancient expression of the diffi- 
culty, and yet a rehgious solution of it came to these 
old thinkers. He whom the heaven of heavens could 
not contain, became a dweller in the human heart. 
This solution was reached by an ancient people, who 
had somehow attained to the highest thought of God 
reached by the ancient world, who thought of the 
worlds as formed by the word of God, Who spake and 
it was done, Who commanded and it stood fast, who 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 295 

held fast both to the transcendence of God, and to 
His dwelling with men, and His indwelling in them. 
O God, thou art my God, though at the same time 
the worshipper knew that God was everywhere. 
Communion with God a necessity of the worshipper, 
though how it was possible to think out the possibility 
of such fellowship was not clear. In fact, these an- 
cient people had the same difficulty which weighs on 
us to-day, namely, to think of fellowship between an 
eternal, infinite being, and man the creature of a day. 
But such a fellowship is necessary if religious life is 
not to die. A man must be persuaded that he is near 
to God, and that God is near to him. Men have had 
that persuasion, and the records of religious expe- 
rience tell us that they have had a conviction of fel- 
lowship with God of so vivid and real a kind as to 
change their conduct and purify their Hfe. The 
record of such experience is so wide and so common, 
that it is as well attested as any experience can be. 
There must have been a way whereby God could have 
come to man, for the records prove the reality of 
this communion. 

Again, the religious life demands that the living God, 
with Whom man has fellowship, shall be no abstrac- 
tion. Who has no power or movement in Himself, with 
no character and no attributes, but a real living power. 
Who can be an object to our devotion, our affection, 
Who can call forth our desires and reward them ; and 
be the theoretical difficulties of construing such an ob- 



296 THEISM 

ject what they may, man will continue to act on this 
belief. You say that God is not an object among 
other objects, but He is the subject for which all 
objects are. Well, religion, with imperturbable con- 
viction, makes reply, and says, yes ; God is the 
subject for which all objects are, but He is also an 
object for me with whom I have come into com- 
munion, and He has spoken to me. Religion makes 
the further request to science and philosophy, had 
you not better try to conceive a kind of unity which 
will enable me to look at all things in God, and God 
in all things, and yet maintain that God is something 
for Himself, and something directly for me? Have 
you exhausted the possible kinds of unity } 

Still more imperative becomes the need of religion, 
when we come face to face, not merely with the facts 
of human weakness and finitude, but face to face 
with the awful fact of the consciousness of sin and 
guilt, the most inexplicable and the saddest of human 
experiences, if there is no fellowship with God. It 
does not help me much to be told that error is only 
one side of truth, and is done away with by being 
included in a wider truth, nor that sin is merely 
defect, because, in my consciousness of guilt, there 
is the persuasion that I have broken that personal 
bond which subsisted between the holy God and me, 
and I can have no abiding peace till the fellowship 
is restored. Guilt arises from the consciousness of 
kinship with God, and from the feeling that I have 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 297 

proven untrue to that kinship. This is also a uni- 
versal human experience, and must, therefore, have 
its roots in reality. 

I do not dwell further on the demands which re- 
ligion makes on our thinking ; these are named just 
to show that any philosophical construction of the 
unity of things must be widened in order to do jus- 
tice to the religious experience of man. It was in 
this relation that the great system of Hegel came to 
grief, broke up into a right and a left and a centre 
party. Hegel did really try to do justice to the 
religious experience of man. He did believe that 
his system was theorized Christianity, and he spoke 
beautifully of the synthetic unity which religion 
brought to the life of the common man. His sys- 
tem did for the thinker what religion had already 
done for the man in the street. But alas ! the ex- 
perience of the common man refused to be theorized 
in the HegeHan way. The position set forth was 
that religion and philosophy were different in form, 
but in matter and aim they were one. Philosophy 
was religion in the form of thought, reasoned, artic- 
ulated, set forth in such a way as to be wholly 
explicated, and understood. Religion is philosophy 
as the Vorstellung, and its truth is set forth in in- 
stitutions, customs, rites, and it is always embodied 
in some symbolical way. The history of religions 
is the description of the way in which religion was 
able to embody in partial forms, more or less com- 



298 THEISM 

plete, the truth that it was able to grasp. Finally 
the absolute religion was reached, and Christianity 
was able to grasp on its own side and embody in its 
own way that absolute truth which on its side philos- 
ophy, in the hands of Hegel, had also accomplished. 
Hegel set to work on these lines, and made a man- 
ful attempt to translate the facts and doctrines of 
Christianity into the language of the Hegelian sys- 
tem. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity became 
the whole of philosophy and the essence of religion. 
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, the tripartite movement, 
which expressed the dialectic evolution of the uni- 
verse, easily applied itself to the doctrine of Father, 
Son, and Spirit, and immediately there arose schemes 
which dealt with the kingdom of the Father, the 
kingdom of the Son, and the kingdom of the Spirit ; 
for the Father is God as He exists in and for Him- 
self, in eternity, and the Son is God as He exists 
as other, in time, and the Spirit is the other return- 
ing to oneness, bearing with it the reconcihation 
accomplished in the process. The Hegelian dialectic 
movement entailed immense labour on its advocates. 
It was necessary for them to apply the dialectic 
movement to nature, to history, to religion, and to 
show that the facts of nature, the world of life, the 
phenomena of human history, and the world of re- 
ligion could be read in that way. The attempt to do 
so led to many luminous and instructive and sug- 
gestive views ; but the facts were somewhat stubborn 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 299 

and refractory, and the Hegelian philosopher was 
sometimes not well acquainted with science, or his- 
tory, or religion, and to the reader of their works the 
facts and events seemed to be on a bed of Procrustes. 
On all sides there was a revolt against this idealism. 
Men of science neglected the theory and turned to 
other work, philosophy also turned away, and re- 
ligion, in particular, found that its most important 
interests were in danger. It was in this relation that 
the matter came to a crisis. Strauss applied the 
Hegelian method to the facts on which Christianity 
based her belief. No doubt Hegel had himself done 
so, but cautiously and generally; but Strauss, per- 
suaded at that time of the truth and adequacy of the 
Hegelian philosophy, sought to translate the doc- 
trine of Christianity into Hegelian formulae. The 
outcome of the transformation is found in the " Leben 
Jesu " and in the " Domatik " of Strauss, which I shall 
not describe, as they are familiar to every student. 
But the pubHcation of the " Leben Jesu " was the 
signal for the outburst of the storm, and the signal 
for the separation of the HegeHan school into the 
three parties of the right, the centre, and the left. 
A full account of the separation and its results for 
modern thought and life, will be found in Siebert's 
" Geschichte de neueren Deutschen Philosophic seit 
Hegel," an able and candid work. See also Fair- 
bairn's " Christ in Modern Theology." 

My limits will not permit me to enter on the his- 



300 THEISM 

tory of the modern tendencies toward idealism. The 
modern idealists in our country and in yours agree in 
saying that the work has all to be done over again, 
and with fuller knowledge of science in all its depart- 
ments, and of the facts and events of history, and of 
the meaning and worth of religion. To myself their 
efforts have been very significant, and they have been 
able to fertiUze all modern inquiry, and to set every 
problem in a new light. There is no sphere in which 
their influence is not to be traced. They have helped 
us to place evolution, which seems to be in the air, in 
a light which enables us to accept it without accept- 
ing the evolution of something out of nothing. They 
have enabled us to look with fresh interest on the 
history of habits, customs, institutions, from the 
rudest to the most complex, and they encourage us 
to look forward to a goal not yet reached, a goal 
which will conserve the gain won by the toil of all 
the ages. Why, then, not accept idealism as the 
crown and the hope of theology and philosophy. In 
some respects I do accept it. I accept it in so far 
as they tell me that mind is first in the universe, and 
that the universe has a meaning. I accept it when 
they tell me of experience and the rise within experi- 
ence of the distinction of subject and object, and of 
the truth that all objects are for the subject. I 
follow gladly, as they take this living, breathing, 
concrete self of mine, and show me that the analysis 
of this real self and of the conditions of its life. 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 3OI 

thought, and action, gives, or imperatively demands, 
the cosmos, that is to say, they show me that my 
experience is possible only if I am in a rational 
world, to which I am related, and which is related to 
me. The world they show me is not a huge con- 
temporaneity, but an ordered world, each part related 
to each, and all bound together in relations which 
can be thought. I follow on as they lead me into 
the ethical world, and watch with admiration their 
theoretical construction of the possibility of moral 
experience, and obey as they tell me how the self is 
to be realized. Nor do I dissent, though I hesitate, 
as they proceed to show that as from the side of the 
finite self a cosmos is needed and is given as the pre- 
supposition of experience, so on the other side a cos- 
mos demands a mind for which it is. But here I 
falter and tread with a hesitating step. For I look 
at the representations of the subject, for which all 
subjects are, and I do not find that the conceptions 
set forth by recent idealists meet the conditions of 
the case. 

To begin with Mr. Bradley : " The absolute has no 
history of its own, though it contains histories with- 
out number. These, with their tale of progress or 
decline, are constructions starting from and based 
on some one given piece of finitude. They are 
but partial aspects in the region of temporal ap- 
pearance. Their truth and reality may vary much 
in extent and in importance, but in the end it 



302 THEISM 

can never be more than relative." ("Appearance 
and Reality," p. 499.) Again, " The absolute is not 
personal, nor is it moral, nor is it beautiful or true." 
(P- 533-) In a rather condescending tone he says: 
** Religion prefers to put forth statements which it 
feels are untenable, and to correct them at once by 
counter-statements, which it finds are no better. It is 
then driven forwards and backwards between both, 
like a dog which seeks to follow two masters. A 
discrepancy worth our notice is the position of God 
in the universe. We may say that in religion God 
tends always to pass beyond Himself. He is neces- 
sarily led to end in the absolute, which for religion is 
not God." (p. 466.) The climax of this argument is 
found in a footnote to page 450. It leads to the di- 
lemma : " If God is, I am not, and if I am, God is not. 
We have not reached a true view until the opposite of 
this becomes self-evident. Then, without hesitation, we 
answer that God is not Himself, unless I also am, and 
that, if God were not, I certainly should be nothing." 
It is somewhat difficult to follow the reasoning 
of Mr. Bradley, and exceedingly difficult to know 
what God stands for in the sentence we have quoted. 
For him the reality is experience ; so he calls it 
frequently. It has no history, though it contains 
histories without number. Changes are ever going 
on within that "experience," and yet that experience 
knows no changes. But the main difficulty I feel in 
dealing with the ideaUstic solution in all its forms is 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 303 

that the unity they reach is a quantitative one. It 
is so with Mr. Bradley, it is so with the Master of 
BalHol, with Professor Wallace, with Green, and with 
all who work under their influence. The experience 
of Mr. Bradley is the union of subject and object in 
the underlying unity set forth in the " Gifford Lec- 
tures " of Edward Caird, or it is the all-inclusive 
self-consciousness of Green which realizes itself in 
finite consciousness. The objection to all of these 
representations is just that they are quantitative, and 
that they cannot do justice to the reality of finite 
experience. 

To do justice to the work of Edward Caird, we 
quote the following : " If, in accordance with the 
principles of IdeaHsm, we regard the infinite not as 
an abstraction, but as a self -determining principle ; if 
we follow out the doctrine of the correlation of inner 
and outer experience, and if we interpret that doctrine 
in the light of the idea of evolution and the conse- 
quences which have been drawn from it, viz. that 
nature comes to self-consciousness in man, and that, 
therefore, the process of man's life is a continuation of 
the self -revelation of the Absolute Being which begins 
in nature, — it then becomes possible to think of God 
as the principle of unity in all things, and yet as a 
living God in whose image man is made. And, on 
the same view, it becomes possible to think of Man 
as 'a partaker in the divine nature,' and, therefore, 
as a self-conscious and self-determining spirit, with- 



304 THEISM 

out gifting him with an absolute individuality, which 
would cut him off from all union and communion 
with his fellow-creatures and with God. I do not 
deny that there are many difficulties in this view, 
difficulties with which I have not attempted to 
deal. But it seems to me this is the only line of 
thought which makes it possible to escape the oppo- 
site absurdities of an individualism which dissolves 
the unity of the universe into atoms, and an abstract 
monism which leaves no room for any real individ- 
uality either in God or in man ; not to speak of the 
still greater absurdity of holding both of these one- 
sided views at once." ("The Evolution of Religion," 
Vol. II., p. 84.) 

The problem is to obtain such a conception of 
God, the cosmos, and man as will enable us to think 
them in their relations each to each, the relative 
reality of each, and how to construe the reality as a 
unity. What kind of unity is it to be.? For some 
kind of unity must be reached, or we shall be driven 
to despair of knowledge and of life. An abstract 
unity is not sufficient, it dissolves in our hands on 
a moment's serious examination. Neither force, 
energy, nor substance can stand the strain of criti- 
cism, for it is impossible to get these to move, or 
to translate themselves into the concrete reality of 
experience. Nor does any other simplicity I have 
been able to meet in the history of philosophy help 
me to think of the unity in variety which makes up 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 305 

the universe. A universal self-consciousness, or the 
unity of subject and object, is no more an adequate 
conception than the persistence of force. Nor will 
the experience of Mr. Bradley meet the case. In 
truth, we must arrive at a conception which leaves 
room for real individuality, that will recognize the 
uniqueness of every person, and yet place every per- 
son in relation to every other person and thing, that 
is, has been, or will be. It must allow reality to 
history, and permit a real progress and real events 
in it. It must recognize human activity as a fac- 
tor in the world's history, and recognize somehow 
that good and evil, happiness and misery, righteous- 
ness and sin, are not appearance, but stern realities 
which philosophy and theology must deal with. The 
cosmos is not appearance, man is real, and God is no 
abstraction. 

The great question of theism to-day is not con- 
tained in a discussion of the various proofs elabo- 
rated by the diligence of former thinkers, nor in the 
criticism of these, which is so commonplace ever 
since the epoch-making work of Kant. The proofs 
and the criticism can be found in many volumes, 
and on both not much that is new or profitable can 
now be said. The problem to-day is to reach or find 
a conception of God adequate to the wider know^- 
ledge placed within the grasp of man in the present 
age. If we obtain such a conception, how shall we 
define the relation of God to the world, and to man ? 

X 



306 THEISM 

Negatively, we may say that a solution which in any 
way makes the world to be the other of God, or 
which makes the world to be the evolution of the 
divine life, or makes God and the world to be aspects 
of one reality, will not suffice. For any solution that 
will satisfy the speculative and the practical inter- 
ests of man, and meet his moral and religious needs, 
must recognize the freedom, the worth, and the inde- 
pendence of God. Any solution that falls short of 
that or confuses it must be rejected ; and even if we 
can find no solution, we must hold fast to the belief 
that a solution is possible, though we may not be 
able to find it. Any solution that makes it impos- 
sible for man to draw near to God, or for God to 
draw near to man, refuses to recognize patent facts 
of experience, and must be rejected as inadequate. 
The idealistic solution may be accepted as an ele- 
ment in the case, but it must be supplemented. We 
may say that for God the world is, and add that God 
is not the world. We say that in God all things and 
persons live, and move, and have their being, and 
yet maintain the richness, the fulness of the divine 
life apart from the world. In fact, we must do so, if 
we are to do justice to all the elements involved in 
the case. 

Thus we approach the question, not by the process 
which gives us such terms as being, substance, the 
unknowable, the unconditioned, the absolute, which 
are terms so familiar to readers of metaphysical 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 307 

discussions, and lead to no result. For to us in the 
very nature of the case all being is determinate 
being. It is characterized so and so, and every 
predicate is a definition of being. To speak of the 
absolute and unconditioned as synonymous with God, 
is simply to alter the conception of God. For God 
exists as a determinate Being, and His attributes are 
simply expressive of the determinate Being that He 
is. If we take the religious consciousness as our 
guide and as our means of interpretation, and take it 
in its highest reach as given in the New Testament, 
then we shall no longer speak of God as absolute, 
and so on, but we shall borrow the grand words, 
God is spirit, God is life, God is love. In other 
words we shall think of God as a determinate Being 
existing in relations, and these relations are abiding 
distinctions within the circle of the divine life. God 
is not an abstract unity, nor an absolute and inclusive 
self-consciousness, God is a living, concrete, complex 
Being, and in the Godhead there are relations and 
activities always in relations and always in action. 
The relations within the Godhead come to our help 
and rescue us from the paralysis of thought wrought 
by the abstractions of metaphysics, and we are not 
compelled to think in terms of an abstract order, 
nor driven to the necessity of deriving a manifold 
universe from a simplicity in which there are no 
relations. 

In the Godhead, then, we already have a kind of 



3o8 THEISM 

unity which does full justice to all the facts ; it con- 
serves the unity and makes room for all the inter- 
relations in which the Godhead consists. The God- 
head is not abstract identity ; infinite differences are 
within God, and infinite manifoldness are embraced 
within one unity. The relations become more appre- 
hensible to us when they are looked at from the 
ethical side. Then they become vivid, real, and 
intelligible. The ethical terms in which we set forth 
these determinations of the divine are Father, Son, 
and Spirit. Before fatherhood and sonship had any 
existence among men the fact in all its glory, in all 
its fulness, in all its meaning, was in eternal existence, 
and love has always been, for it has its native home 
in God. God is the eternal actuality of love. 

Thus in the very conception of the Godhead as 
given us in the highest expression of the religious 
consciousness, we find a type of unity such as we 
have been in search of. Infinite differences held 
together in living relation, the self-surrender of one 
to another, measureless love abiding in all the move- 
ments within the divine life, and endless oppor- 
tunities of self-communication. It may be possible 
'to call this "experience," to use the words of Mr. 
Bradley, but it is no lonely experience of one in mere 
relation with a world, it is already and has always 
been a social experience. In the divine life as it 
is disclosed to us, or as it is set forth in the highest 
form of the religious consciousness, we have, not a 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 309 

simple type, but a manifold in unity, not an absolute, 
unlimited, but a determinate being existing in rela- 
tions, and in reciprocal relation of intelligent, rational, 
and spiritual movement. Not in quantitative sim- 
plicity nor in metaphysical abstraction are we to 
think of the Godhead, but the highest conception we 
can form is that of love unbeginning, unending, love 
at its highest ideal. Such a conception helps us to 
make intelligible the train of thought contained in 
the passage quoted from the Master of Balliol on a 
former page. It makes it possible to think of " God 
as the principle of unity in all things, and yet as a 
living God in whose image man is made." 

We may invert the sentence of Mr. Bradley and 
say that the absolute, if we may call God by that 
name, is personal, is moral, is beautiful, is good, is 
true. It would indeed be difficult to make these or 
any other propositions of the absolute as the abso- 
lute is construed by him. For in that experience 
which has no history, though it contains all histories 
in it, there can be no reciprocity, no communion, no 
love. Indeed, the descriptions of the absolute, con- 
tained in the book of Mr. Bradley, are mainly nega- 
tive. Almost every proposition is negatived by some 
other proposition. But on the view stated above, it 
is possible to find our highest and our best realized 
without imperfection and without any drawback. 
In the divine life our ideals are already realized, 
whatever these ideals may be. Every power of 



310 THEISM 

man, every faculty, every ethical virtue, every spirit- 
ual quality, has its ideal; our imperfect knowledge 
has perfect knowledge as its ideal ; reason as insight 
and as power leads on to perfect reason as its ideal ; 
Fatherhood and sonship, imperfectly realized here, 
have always been in their perfect form. The in- 
finite is the realized ideal of the finite forms which 
our ideals take. In the Christian conception of the 
Godhead, we have the joy of recognizing the realiza- 
tion of the ideals which haunt us with their shadowy 
forms as the perfection of what we know and ex- 
perience here. Whatever personal life foreshadows, 
whatever social relations may indicate as to their 
perfect form, all beauty, all righteousness, all truth, 
have their home and their perfection in God. 

But what of the cosmos, and what of man } In 
connection with the Christian conception of God how 
are we to think of a material world, and of the pos- 
sibility of individual selves living together in one 
cosmos } How can we think the cosmos along with 
the Christian conception of God } Are we to think 
the cosmos as the other of God } Idealism says we 
must so think if we are to think at all. Such a 
necessity of thought lies on all who lead up to a 
universal self-consciousness, or to any representation 
which leaves God without an other. From that 
point of view an other is imperatively needed, the 
universal subject must have an object ; without an 
object it could not realize itself. But the Christian 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 311 

conception postulates otherness in the very divine 
life, and in that determinate Being, who we rever- 
ently name God, there is the otherness which is 
the actualization of all possibilities of perfection. 
For the Christian conception the stress is laid on 
another side, and the solution of the problem takes 
another form. We do not try to find God from the 
world merely, or to argue from the articulated system 
to the thought which makes it a system, though that 
way is open to us too, nor do we merely look for a 
subject for which all objects are, for we have recog- 
nized in the manifoldness of the Divine, character- 
istics which lay no imperative of thought on us why 
we should demand a datum objective to God. God 
is ; and ideals are realized in the Godhead, and would 
be so if there were no cosmos. 

If so, why should there be a cosmos } Perhaps 
we cannot say. But this may be said, that we must 
find a reason in some other direction than that which 
makes a cosmos necessary for the realization of God. 
May we not find a sufficient reason for the existence 
of a world in the ethical character of God } Suppose 
we take the great word *' God is love," and take it 
as the essential meaning of God, may we not find 
in it the explanation of the cosmos and of man 1 
Love is transitive, passes out beyond itself, gives 
itself to its object, and strives to make that object 
blessed. Eternal love had its home in God, but 
love abounds more and more ; may we not conceive 



312 THEISM 

this love as the creative impulse to the making of 
a cosmos ? Love can be satisfied only by giving, 
may it not explain, or make conceivable to us, a 
noble necessity that led to the making of a world ? 
To us there is a necessity which is the meaning of 
freedom, we speak it every time we use the word 
"ought." There is a service which is perfect free- 
dom. We may say in a higher sphere that there 
was an ethical necessity for creation on the part of 
God to satisfy His need of loving and of communi- 
cating Himself to the beings who could receive 
Him. " Creation is due to the moral perfection of 
the Creator, who is so essentially love that He could 
not but create a world that He might create beati- 
tude." (Fairbairn's " Christ in Modern Theology," 

P-4I3.) 

Looking at the cosmos as the outcome of the 
creative love of God, just as we looked at the God- 
head as the synthesis of transcendence and imma- 
nence, how are we to think the relation of God to 
the world } Has there ever been a deeper, truer word 
spoken on this than the ancient word, " He spake 
and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast " } 
In our measure we also have an activity that makes 
things to be which once were not. All around us 
are the works of man. At his command cities, 
states, empires, poems, histories, philosophies, arise, 
and man's activity under conditions and under limi- 
tations may enable us to think of an activity through 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 313 

the exercise of which the cosmos may have arisen. 
In the service of love, the power, wisdom of God, 
set to work and the cosmos began to be made. The 
material world is for us a means of effecting our 
purpose and realizing our aim. But before we can 
use it we must understand its nature, its law, and 
its method of working. But its nature, law, and 
method of working is on the other side a revelation 
to us of a mode of thought higher than our thought, 
and of a purpose greater than we have yet learned 
to know. May not nature be simply a mode of 
communion between beings who can think, reason, 
and feel.? The story of nature is a story that we 
are learning to read more clearly as the years pass 
on, and every new page which we slowly spell out 
is a fresh testimony to the depth and breadth of the 
thought that is embodied in the universe. I have 
said something of the wondrous story in former lec- 
tures, here I lay stress on the conception that what 
we call the material world is, after all, only a system 
of embodied thought, a language conveying a mean- 
ing which may be understood, and is so far under- 
stood. May not this material universe be simply a 
vehicle for the expression of a divine meaning, and 
may not it be there for a purpose beyond itself } 

One thing we know, that the material universe 
is there for the expression of our meaning, and it 
will take up what we mean, preserve it for a millen- 
nium or two, and the record can be read by those 



314 THEISM 

who can wrest the secret from it. The bricks of 
Babylon, the pyramids and the papyri of Egypt, 
and remains of antiquity from many countries and 
ages, have lent themselves first to take the meanings 
read into them, have kept that meaning, and have 
yielded up that meaning to the judicious questioning 
of the men of this century. If matter can thus 
serve intellectual and moral ends impressed on them 
by finite intelligence, what is to hinder us from 
thinking that in its very nature and in all the history 
of its movement, it is intended to convey to finite 
thinkers a meaning put into it by a Thinker and a 
Maker who is the source of it and of them ? Science 
is just the meaning which man has found in nature, 
and it presupposes that there is such a meaning. 
The world of nature is a determinate world, existing 
not in vague possibility, but constituted so and so, 
in definite relations, and in defined modes of action 
which we call laws ; that is, it has a meaning. 

Out of infinitely possible worlds there is this 
actual world in which we are, and the nature and 
history and evolution of it are all definite and in- 
telligible. What is that but to say that the Maker 
of the world proceeded in the making of the world 
as if He had the aim of enabling intelHgent beings 
of a finite order so far to read and understand the 
method of His working. He bound Himself, having 
begun to make a world, to proceed on the lines 
which He first laid down, and to make each step 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 315 

presuppose what had gone before, and make the 
next step a consequence of all that had been accom- 
plished. Permanence and progression are notes of 
the history of this universe, and the method of evolu- 
tion has established this conclusion on a firmer basis 
than ever. From the point of view of Christian 
Theism nature is the middle term between God and 
man, an instrument in the hand of both for com- 
munion and knowledge. May we ask what is the 
relation of God to the material universe.-* Can we 
find an answer.? We have already expressed our 
dissatisfaction with the idealistic answer, may we 
keep what they have gained, and still have an an- 
swer of our own } They have helped us to conceive 
the real as rational, and to think of the world as a 
rational world. Is not the rationality of the world 
conserved when we regard it as the embodiment of 
a divine thought, the fulfilment of a divine purpose, 
even though we refuse to regard it as the other of 
God, or as necessary to the realization of God } We 
may go still farther and say that God is immanent 
in the material universe so far as that universe is 
able to receive Him. He is present in the atoms of 
matter as the power which holds them in being, He 
is present in the chemical world as the power that 
shapes the laws of its working, present in the world 
of life as the sustaining power that upholds and 
guides them onward and upward. He is the God 
who ever strives to communicate Himself to His 



3l6 THEISM 

creation, and to make a creation which can receive 
His self-communication. 

The making of a world which can receive the 
fulness of God is a long, slow, and painful process. 
The process is not yet complete. We may, however, 
see something of the divine patience and love that 
has toiled at the making of such a world. We see 
that it is a work of patient and infinite toil, and we 
set aside the notion of a fiat as altogether unsuitable 
to the making of an ethical world. Such a world 
cannot be so made, for it can be made only by its 
own cooperation. Even in the lowest reach of life 
living things move, act, grow, only by their own 
exertions, and every quality they possess must, if not 
acquired, at least be used by them. The upward 
striving of life is the commonplace of evolution. 
Though this may be stated in terms that are merely 
mechanical, and may be reduced to terms of an 
abstract struggle, yet it is true that life makes 
progress only by effort, and living beings can main- 
tain themselves and make progress only by sustained 
and well-directed effort. They have to help to make 
themselves. If this be true of all life, even of life 
which is guided by pressure, and not by foreseen 
ends, how much more true is it of life self-conscious, 
rational, and ethical, life which is ruled by ideals 
presented as motives and acted on for the accom- 
plishment of foreseen ends. Emphatically here is a 
life that cannot be made by mere power, or by 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 317 

pressure, or by instinct, or by the exercise of 
terror or fear. It must be won by rational motives 
and ideal ends set forth in such a way as win the 
desires and inform the motives, and to persuade the 
conscious being that this is the ideal which he is 
bound to realize. 

If a world is to be made in this way, — and it is the 
only way in which such a world can be made, — clearly 
it is a process that must be slow. The education of 
the human race has been slow, painful, and laborious, 
but there has been an education of the human race. 
Progress has been made, ideals have been formed, 
and men have been trained to understand and love 
these ideals. It has been a real history to which all 
the races have made their contribution, and the end 
is not yet. It is a history from which we have yet 
much to learn, and when we read it, we ought to take 
heed lest we bring it down to the level of our own 
idealism, and reduce it to a formula of our own. 
Idealism has manifested that tendency many a time, 
notably in the case of Strauss and Green. But the 
trend of history is the exhibition of a larger idealism 
than ours, it is the idealism of God, worked out in 
the making of a world, to which He can communicate 
Himself. As the world of nature is larger than our 
science, and is the most constant and stringent critic 
of our science, so is history the greatest critic of our 
theories. On all sides nature and history remind us 
that we do not rule even this planet, and that there 



3l8 THEISM 

are larger meanings in the world than we have yet 
seen. 

But we have read the story so far as to get a 
glimpse of the larger meaning. If we read it as the 
story of the making of a world which is to have a 
diviner issue than is yet seen, may we not hope that 
the apparent failures, the woes, the miseries, the 
mistakes, and the evil that stand written in lurid 
colours all over the pages of history may have a 
meaning .? At all events, the making of an ethical 
and spiritual world, in which ethical ideals will be 
universally acted on, is a stupendous task. As I 
glance at the histories, philosophies, and religions 
of the world, I must say that I have not found much 
light cast on the awfulness of human history by any 
one of them, one only excepted. Not much help 
can be had from a philosophy which minimizes the 
sin and misery of the world, nor from one that ex- 
aggerates these until the other side is lost sight of 
altogether. But in one place and among a certain 
people there arose a way of thinking of man and 
his history and destiny which relieves the darkness 
of the outlook, and that without doing violence to 
the facts whether these are optimistic or pessimistic. 
That view teaches me to look at the world of nature 
and of man as the work of God, and it represents 
God as a living God, of Whom, to Whom, and 
through Whom are all things, and it represents God 
as not indifferent to the world of men. But the; 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 319 

main thing at present for us is, that this God is 
represented as working and toiling through the ages 
in order to make man, and to raise man to that 
divine ideal formed for each man and for all men in 
the kingdom of God. 

We are coming to understand that wondrous 
story, and the light which it casts on the character 
of God and the course of history. A living God 
striving to persuade an intelligent, rational creature 
to whom freedom has been given, of the kind of life 
he ought to live, and of the aims he ought to have, and 
to win him to surrender himself to the higher guid- 
ance, and to realize the chief end of his being. That is 
the vision disclosed to us in that literature. It is a 
story of the mistakes which man has made, a story 
of the way in which he has perpetually chosen lower 
ideals and has striven to realize them. A story on 
man's side of baffled aims and thwarted desires, of 
defeat and misery because he had made mistakes, 
and on the side of God, a constant, patient love, striv- 
ing to raise man to the recognition of the higher 
ideals and of the life which a man ought to live. God 
bearing with men, striving, toiling, working, loving, 
shall I not say suffering .? in order to make men who 
might receive Him, and striving to satisfy His desire to 
love and impart Himself to a people who could receive 
Him. So the course of history may be read, as the 
striving of God to educate men, and to raise them 
to the recognition of that ideal He has formed for 



320 THEISM 

man. May we not thus read the discipline of law, 
the connection between wrong-doing and misery, the 
pain of thwarted desire, and the pang of deferred 
hope ? All these and the other phenomena of human 
life and history become luminous when read in the 
light of the purpose of God to make a kingdom 
of finite spirits to whom He could communicate 
Himself, and to whom He might give blessedness 
unspeakable. 

This ethical world is making, it is not yet made. 
It is being made now by all the agencies at work in 
the world we know, and in the making of it a 
mother's love, a father's care, the answering love of 
children, the pity and piety that are in the world, 
loyalty to ideals, devotion to duty, the grandeur of 
science, the splendour of philosophy, the vision of 
beauty realized in art and poetry, the might of re- 
ligion, and the magnificence of Christian effort are 
factors in the hand of God for the making of that 
kingdom of God which is to crown the cosmos and 
justify the toil of the ages. Unless we can have such 
a hope as the outcome of all the travail of the ages 
human effort would be paralyzed. Even with that 
hope clouds and darkness remain, and the difficulty 
of a speculative adjustment of all elements abide. 
That is simply to say that we are finite, and cannot 
look at all things from the centre. 

At the same time, it is to be observed that the 
world to which the present state leads is a world of 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 32 1 

persons, intelligent, self-conscious, ethical, spiritual, 
and the unity of such a world presupposes a plu- 
rality of such persons, bound together by bonds 
which are not quantitative, but ethical and spiritual. 
The bond is constituted freely through self-surrender, 
and the recognition of the bond of service is the way 
of self-realization. In any ultimate unity there must 
be a recognition of the worth of each person, and 
each person must be conceived as ready to see that 
for the realization of his personality the whole is 
needed. " Be a person and recognize others as per- 
sons," it seems to me that no scheme of monism can 
give a real meaning to this ethical precept. We are 
in search of a unity, and the unity we require is of 
the most complex kind. For it must include in it 
God, man, and the world. No unity of the kind 
proposed by monism meets the necessity of the case. 
In fact, monism does injustice to the conception of 
God, for it makes Him to be nothing for Himself, it 
destroys the reality of finite life, and leaves it no 
room for self-development and self-surrender to a 
higher, and it makes the cosmos to be really acosmic. 
We must widen the meaning of unity, and follow on 
from the unity of abstract identity to the wider unity 
which meets us in scientific investigations, up to the 
unity of self-conscious life, up to the higher unity 
of many self-conscious lives in an organism which is 
spiritually held together, not by physical bonds in any 
way, but none the less held together in a real unity. 



322 THEISM 

The history of the universe must be construed as 
a real history, and the events in it niust have real 
validity. How shall this be accomplished? It seems 
to me that it has so far been accomplished by the 
recognition of the unity of many persons in a social 
unity. There is, if anywhere, the type of unity of 
which we are in search. A social unity constituted 
by God, to God, and for God, in which a finite world 
can come to its ideal in God, and be a world to which 
God can communicate Himself, and in which the 
world will gladly surrender itself to God, this is the 
unity we need, and we have it in the kingdom of 
God. But can we have such a unity of God, man, 
and the world .? Not if we make it a quantitative one. 
To such a unity Strauss's objection would be fatal. 
" If reality is ascribed to the idea of the divine and 
human natures, is this equivalent to the admission that 
this unity must have actually been once manifested, 
as it never had been, and never more will be, in one 
individual.? This is, indeed, not the mode in which 
the Idea realizes itself ; it is not wont to lavish all 
its fulness on one exemplar, and be niggardly to all 
others — to express itself fully in that one individual, 
and imperfectly in all the rest; it rather loves to 
distribute its riches among a multiplicity of exemplars 
which reciprocally complete each other — in the alter- 
nate appearance and suppression of a series of indi- 
viduals." (Strauss's " Life of Jesus," George Eliot's 
** Translation," pp. 779-80.) 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 323 

The objection reveals the character of the unity 
which is in his mind. It is simply a quantitative 
unity, and the riches of the idea are of a quantitative 
kind. Now there is a kind of wealth which is 
quantitative. If you have it, I have it not. If it 
is yours, it is not mine. This kind of wealth has 
nothing personal or distinctive about it, and it is 
equally at home in every pocket. There is another 
kind of wealth which is kept by giving it away. 
Intellectual wealth, moral wealth, spiritual wealth, is 
increased by imparting it to others. If the wealth 
of the idea could be lavished on one exemplar, that 
would be the shortest and surest way of enriching 
all the individuals in the world. It enriches me to 
think of Sir Isaac Newton, and the wealth of the 
** Principia " is mine when I can receive it. The 
thoughts of Plato and Aristotle, the poetry of Homer 
and Dante, the achievements of any man, the meas- 
ure of perfection maintained by any man, — these are 
not an impoverishment of me, but a way of enrich- 
ing me. The wealth of human thought, the great- 
ness of human achievement, the grandeur of moral 
life realized in any life, are mine, if I can take them. 
And if I take them I do not make any man the 
poorer. Suppose all perfections realized in one man, 
suppose the wealth of the idea to be fully realized in 
one individual, then that would be a way of revealing 
to all men the greatness of humanity, and of inspir- 
ing them to follow and to imitate. The fulness of 



324 THEISM 

realized and manifested human life is the heritage of 
man, and it is of a kind to which the measure of 
quantity does not apply. Think of what Washington 
and Lincoln have been to this great land, and to the 
people in it. 

Moral, intellectual, and spiritual wealth are qualita- 
tive, not quantitative. The criticism of Strauss be- 
comes inept as soon as this is seen. The relations 
in the kingdom of God are qualitative, not quantitative. 
What is given and taken in that kingdom grows with 
the giving and taking, just as the intellectual, moral, 
and spiritual wealth of humanity increases from age 
to age ; but the growth of such wealth here is but 
a shadow of the growth of that wealth in the per- 
fected kingdom of God. God can give Himself in 
love, grace, and truth, and the giving does not lessen 
the fulness of God. Man can surrender himself to 
God, and in that surrender find perfect freedom and 
fulness of being. We have exemplars of that fact 
in human life here, and we can see it realized in part 
in the family, the state, and the church. Of course 
neither the person who surrenders himself nor the 
object to whom he surrenders himself is perfect, and 
the full ethical meaning of such a relationship is not 
disclosed here and now. But it is so far disclosed as 
to reveal to us the ideal of such a relationship under 
other conditions. Nay, there is one phase of such a 
possibility set forth even here, but it is one on which 
I do not dwell. Let me say that in the surrender of 



IDEALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 325 

a man to Christ, and in the giving of Himself by 
Christ to man, we find a fact of religious experience 
in which an ideal is reached, and the man who sur- 
renders himself to Christ finds himself in Christ. 

Full scope for individual life, thought, and action, 
full realization of the individual in all his individual- 
ity, perfected character of each according to the ideal 
of the individual, and on the other side the wealth of 
the whole poured into each person, and returned by 
each person to the whole, and all in God, who gives 
himself in immeasurable fulness to His creation, such 
is the ideal of the kingdom of God. That unity is 
not the starting-point, it is the goal. It is not yet, 
but it will be. It will be the outcome of infinite striv- 
ing, it will be the result of age-long divine endeavour, 
the fruit of eternal toil, work, and suffering, for it is 
the effort of God to make a world, which also makes 
itself, and must be persuaded to do so. 

Much more might be said, had I more time. But 
I have already far exceeded my limits. In this last 
lecture I have been only able to give an outline of 
what I mean, but the outline I hope is intelligible, 
and, in the future, it may be worked out in more de- 
tail. But I am persuaded that it is on these lines 
that the philosophy and theology of the future may 
most hopefully proceed. Philosophically, we must 
retrace our steps somewhat, and try to make the 
metaphysic of Kant agree with his ethic, and give a 
rational meaning to the thing in itself, which is an 



326 THEISM 

irrational element in his system. Theologically, too, 
we have a great deal to do, and we must overhaul 
our abstract doctrines, rescue them from the dominion 
of abstractions, and make them to be a fuller repre- 
sentation of the reality of the concrete personal, 
religious life of the individual, and of individuals 
constituted into a society of redeemed men. The 
outlook is not dark, it is hopeful. Many are at work, 
many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased, 
and every increase of knowledge is available for the 
service of theology, and theology is giving itself to 
the mighty task of using it. For theology is in the 
central position, and has the widest command of the 
requisite resources ; it can alone adequately deal with 
the postulates and the fulness of the religious life; 
and if unity is to be attained, it must be attained 
through theology. 



INDEX 



Agnosticism, see Synthetic Philoso- 
phy. 
Anaxagoras, 246. 

Animism, Tylor on, 112, 242; 122. 
Anthropomorphism, 268. 
Atomic theory, 21 seq. 
Auf klarung, 143, 163-5, I74. 190-1. 

Bain (Dr. Alex.), 201. 

Balfour (A. J.), his thesis, 188; and 
a criterion of belief, 188-9; l^is 
antithesis between authority and 
reason, 190 J<f^. / that antithesis mis- 
leading, 193-4. 

Bastian (Dr. H. C), his experiments, 
44. 

Bradley (F. H.), on the content of 
the absolute, 301-2; 54, 158, 303, 

305. 309- 
Brinton (Dr.), 243. 
Buckle (H. T.), and Mr. Benjamin 

Kidd, 164. 

Caird (Edward), on development, 
95 seg. ; on God as the principle of 
unity, 303-4 ; 261, 309. 

Causality, science and the concep- 
tion of, 39, 91. 

Cayley, 3. 

Cell, structure, 56 ; differentiation of, 
60 ; Marshallow, 57. 

Conservation of energy, 8. 

Darwin, on the limits to the increase 

of a species, 77 ; 89, 99. 
Definitions, the inadequacy of, 12. 
Descartes, 142. 



Edwards (Jonathan), i, 289. 



Environment, correspondence be- 
tween life and, 102 ; man and his, 
lo-zseq.; organism relative to, 112; 
modifications, of — toolmaking, 
104 ; speech, 108, see Man. 

Ether, Maxwell on the properties and 
functions of the, 2.6 seg. 

Evolution, theory of, factors undis- 
covered, 71 ; value of, 81 ; special 
difficulties of, 88, 94 ; arrested de- 
velopment, 88 seg. ; and the con- 
ception of causality, 91; and 
philosophy, 2.60 seg. 

Evolution, ethical, spiritual, and re- 
ligious, 277. 

Existence, the struggle for, 75 seq. 

Fairbaim (Dr. A. M.), on the ethical 
necessity for creation, 312; 299. 

Feeling, psychology of, 63. 

Fichte (J. 00,269. 

Fiske (John) , on evolution and man, 
266 ; on causality, 267 ; on the 
identification of the deity with the 
cosmos, 270-1 ; 272, 275. 

" Foundations of Behef," see Balfour. 

Geddes (Prof. P.) , on the organism, 
69; 89. 

Generalization, the process of, objec- 
tions to, and limitations of, Zseg., 
14, 24 seg. 

Graham (Prof. W.), on the divine 
consciousness and personality, 
268-9; 271. 

Greece, and the emancipation of the 
individual, 141. 

Green (T. H.), 303, 317. 



Hamilton (Sir W.), 63. 
327 



328 



INDEX 



Hebrews, and the emancipation of 
the individual, 141. 

Hegel, 126-7, 237, 292, 297-9. 

Hesiod, 247. 

Hdffding (Prof. H.), on conscious- 
ness, 203-4. 

Homer, 247. 

Hume, on personal identity, \o^seq. 

Huxley (Prof. T. H.), on the physi- 
cal processes and basis of life, 
46 seq. ; on the organism, 68 ; 201. 

Hyde (Prot T. DeW.), 150. 

Idealism, see Philosophy. 
Individualism, x^oseq. 
Isomerism, 54. 

James (Prof. W.) , 149-52, 157, 201. 

Kant, 305, 325. 

Kidd (Benjamin), his thesis, 163; 
and Mr. H. T. Buckle — a compari- 
son, 164-5; and the Aufklarung, 
165 ; on the struggle for existence, 
166 seq.; on selection, 169; and 
Weismann, x6g seq.; and degener- 
ation, 171; and rationality, 173-4, 
176 seq.; and religion, 181 seq.; 
and altruism, 186-7 ; his theory 
and its defects, 168 seq. ; 105, 162. 

Kinetic theory of gases, 13. 

Kropotkin (Prince), 89. 

Lang (Andrew) , on the origin of re- 
ligion, 243. 

Laotze, 288. 

Law, mechanical, 10; insufficiency 
of, 24 seq. ; and purpose, 40. 

Law, the periodic, 14, 22. 

Life, conditions of, 37 ; origin of, 43 ; 
Watson on origin of, 44 ; growth, 
83 seq. ; embryonic, 85 ; arrested 
development, 88 j^^^.; rational, and 
its implications, 98 seq. ; relations, 
50 seq.; see Environment and 
World. 

Lockyer (Sir N.), 78. 

Lotze, 225. 



MacBride (Prof), on zoological 
classification, 83. 

Mackenzie (Prof. J. S.), on the 
family, 127. 

Man, primitive, environment, 102 seq.; 
toolmaking, 104 ; speech, 108 ; 
reason and retrogression, 113-4; 
taboo, 115 ; a standard of conduct, 
115 seq.; his family or tribe the 
imit, 119; mythology, 120; science, 
121-2; animism, 122, 242-3; mar- 
riage and the family, 123 seq. 

Man, the making of, world empires, 
132; war, 133; citizenship, 135; 
conflict between the individual and 
society, 132; the emancipation of 
the individual, 140 seq.; organi- 
zation for a common end, 136 seq. 

Man, and the knowledge of God, 
276 ; moral, spiritual, and religious 
evolution of, 277; the God of his 
experience, 278 ; objective sanc- 
tions for morality, 280 seq.; God 
in history, 284 ; humanity a unity, 
144, 147. 

Marshall (A. M.) , on cell structure, 

57. 
Master of Balliol, see Caird. 
Materialism, 146. 
Matter, definitions of, 12 ; pre-atomic 

state of, 21 ; properties of living, 

46 seq.; interrelation of organic 

and inorganic, 48, 59. 
Maxwell (clerk) , on the properties and 

functions of the ether, 26 ; 29, 154. 
Mill (James), 201. 
Mill (J.S.),20i. 

Natural selection, sub-terms of, 73 

seq., 170-1. 
Nebular theory, 35. 
Newton, 3, 7, 29. 

Organism, unity of the, 51 seq., 67 
seq. ; relation to environment, 62 ; 
variations, 71 ; is more than a sum, 
71 ; Huxley on, 68 ; Sedgwick and 
Wilson on, 67 ; Geddes, Stirling, 



INDEX 



329 



and Virchow on, 69; the social, 
Vj^seq. 

Paley, 91. 

Personality, Hume on, 199 seq. ; con- 
sciousness, 202 seq.; Hoffding on, 
203-4 ; conception of self, 209 seq. ; 
realization of self, 212-3 '. individu- 
ality and, 214 seq. ; development of, 
a condition of social union, 217 seq.; 
irrelation and independence of, 220 ; 
ideals and their reality, 221 seq. ; 
Lotze and, 225; influences affect- 
ing, 279-80. 

Philosophy, idealist, its basis, 261; 
debt of theology to, 257 seq.; 
and Christianity, — Hegel, 297 seq., 
Strauss, 299 ; its unity quantitative, 
303, 322; its value and influence, 
300-1; Bradley's, ofii seq., 309; 
Caird's, 303-4; the problem of, 
-3,00, seq. 

Philosophy, the synthetic, its basis, 
260, 275 ; and the normality of the 
religious faculty, 230-1 ; debt of 
theology to, 257 seq.; and a know- 
ledge of God, 262 seq.; and the 
ultimate reality, 264 seq. ; and an- 
thropomorphism, 268 seq.; its af- 
firmations, 270; its conclusions 
extended, 272 seq., 2j8 ; its results 
and tendencies, or] /^ seq. 

Plato, 247. 

Poulton (Prof. E. B.), on physiologi- 
cal selections, 79 seq. 

Power, manifest and therefore known, 
91 seq. 

Preadaptation, 86. 

Quantities, transmission of, acquired, 
90. 

Ramsay (Prof. W.) , 13-4. 

Rayleigh (Lord), 13. 

Religion, universal, 227-8,240; and 

human life, 228, 288-9, 293 seq.; 

and science, 228-9, 250 j^^., 286; 

Spencer and, 230, 260-7, 270, 272- 

6, 291 ; and the race, 240-2, T^Zseq., 



^Zseq.; origins of, 242 j^^.; Lang 
and Smith on origins of, 243-4; 
conservatism of, 244-5 ; Plato and, 
247; and morals in crisis, 246-7; 
and Israel, 247-8; evolution of, 
277 seq. ; and God in history, 284 ; 
the conception of God, 285 seq., 
294-5 ; Edwards and, 289-90 ; Kidd 
and, \Ziseq.; see Philosophy. 

Romanes (G. J.), 79, 99. 

Rome, and the emancipation of the 
individual, 141. 

Science, attitude to, 2; presupposi- 
tions of, 3; need of a concrete 
universal in, 8 seq. ; methods of, 24 ; 
and the conception of causality, 39, 
91 ; conservatism of, 43 ; the chang- 
ing order of, 153-4; and religion, 
228-9, 250 j^^'., 286. 

Sedgwick and Wilson, on the unity 
of the organism, 67. 

Shakespeare, 217. 

Siebert, 299. 

Smith (W. Robertson), on primitive 
religion, 244. 

" Social Evolution," see Kidd. 

Spencer (Herbert), 32, 47, 51, 86, 94^ 
122, 150, 169, 171, 201, 204, 222-3, 
230-1, 244, 260-7, 270, 272-6, 291. 

Spinoza, 15 seq. 

Stirling (J. Hutchison), on the unity 
of the organism, 69. 

Strauss, on a quantitative unity, 322; 

299. 317. 324. 
Struggle for existence, 75 j^^.; Kidd 

on, 166 seq. 
Survival of the fittest, 73. 
Sylvester, 3. 

Taboo, 115. 

Theism, intelligibility of the world 

a postulate of, 21 ; origins and the 

theistic argument, 42. 
Tylor, on animism, 112; 242. 

Unity, in things, 11, 36, 155; of the 
cell, 58 ; of the organism, 51 seq.. 



330 



INDEX 



&;, 70 ; of the race, 144, 147, 195-6 ; 
extra mundane, 161; difficulty of 
thinking a, 157 seq., 304-5; the 
Godhead the type of, 308 seq.; 
idealism and a, — Bradley, 302, 
Caird, 303-4, 309; Strauss and a 
quantitative, 322. 

Variation, 71, 75 ; demand for indefi- 
nite, 78 ; 171. 
Virchow, on the organism, 69. 

Wallace (Prof W.), 149, 303. 
Ward (Dr. James), 201. 
Watson (Prof.), on the origin of life, 
44. 



Weismann, 90, 167, 169-71. 

World, rational, 21, 154 seq., 314-5 ; 
conditions which have made life 
possible in, 37 ; preparation for life, 
34 seq. ; evolution of the inorganic, 
36 ; entry of life into, 49, 60 ; pur- 
pose evident in, 40 seq.; pov/er, 
manifest and therefore known, in, 
91 seq. ; subjective aspect of, 198 
seq. ; ethical necessity for creation, 
311-2; extra mundane unity, 161. 

Worlds, the making of, 18 seq. 

Xenophanes, 247. 



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